


Not What You Think

by MostlyGuy



Series: Not What You Think 'Verse [1]
Category: Glee, Glee RPF
Genre: FTM, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gosh aren't tags fun?, M/M, Other, RPF, Slash, Trans, Transgender, Transmasculine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 25,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyGuy/pseuds/MostlyGuy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Zack's first big Hollywood movie and he's up for the challenge, though a little daunted. When he meets Trip, his stunt double, he's surprised by his reaction. But not quite as surprised as he's going to be when he finds out Trip's backstory...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written several years ago as Chris Colfer RPF fanfic, this has been reworked, recharacterised and reposted to my new AO3. It stands as a fic in its own right, especially now, so far from the Glee heydays. Whilst of course you can visualise Zack however you need to, he is a work of fiction and he bears no real resemblance to any person, living or dead.  
> Trip is utterly real.  
> Please feel free to comment. There are several shorts in this 'verse. I'll post them in due course if you like this one.

Zack pulled his shades from his forehead as he jumped down the steps. The sun was blazing through the narrow gaps between the tightly-packed trailers. He reflected that it must be a pretty high maintenance cast if it warranted this much accommodation and then smiled inwardly as he realised, not for the first time, that he was one of that high maintenance cast. Zack felt the edge of his mouth curl into a half-grin which he tried in vain to suppress. His first big movie. His first real, proper, high-budget Hollywood movie! Shooting three seasons of a TV series had been the most awesome experience, it had established him, given him everything he needed to launch into his chosen field: the contacts, the name. Now it was only a matter of time before he’d be fulfilling his dream of writing and directing. But he was jumping the gun... it was only the first week of filming, (not that he’d even seen a camera yet) and he was still finding his feet. It was strange to be working with an unfamiliar group of people. He’d become so used to the old team, knew how they worked, what each director wanted. It had become so that the whole cast and crew almost didn’t need to discuss the scenes, how to play them, what to do, which angles to choose. It had become almost predictable, maybe a little unchallenging... This now, this was something new, a little scary, certainly challenging. 

And Zack loved a challenge.

Entering the hangar-like sound stage Zack paused for a moment. The cold darkness caught him by surprise until he lifted his shades and oriented himself. He caught sight of Sam, the director, an almost impossibly awe-inspiring person with whom to be working. Zack headed over to where things seemed to be happening and hovered nearby, waiting to be noticed. Sam was mid-flow and swung his arm wildly to the right, 

‘...all the way round, like this...’ he paused, ‘Oh hey, Zack, listen, there’s someone you need to meet. Wait there.’

He finished talking to a guy in a faded black tee shirt and a black cap (almost certainly a lighting technician or camera guy, Zack thought. They had a look about them.)

Sam straightened up and put his hand on Zack’s shoulder, propelling him to the other side of the hangar where a group of three or four men stood, arms folded, critically appraising the set which occupied the far end of the space. The tallest of the group was built like no-one Zack had ever seen before. He was massive. His arms were bulging with muscle and his chest appeared to have been barely forced into his spandex sports top. Zack was suddenly aware that he had been staring at those arms for just a little too long and that he was now being introduced to their owner,

‘Zack, this is our stunt director, Marco. He’ll talk you through what’s happening later when we begin filming the action sequences.’

Zack shook hands.

‘Hi, pleased to meet you, Marco.’ Always repeat the name back to them to make sure you’ve got it right. Zack was terrible with names and had to prompt himself to do all the little tricks to help him remember. Marco. Marco. Stunt director. Oh dear holy God, he was in an action movie. That little smile twitched at his lip again. Yeah, but this was intelligent action.

‘Zack, this is part of my team for this movie, Raph the fight director, he’ll be choreographing the sequences you do yourself...’

‘Hey, Raph’ short, stocky, dark eyes, dark hair. HUGE hands. Zack was momentarily surprised by the firmness of the handshake.

‘...and Mike who deals with health and safety...’

Mike interjected ‘I’m the one who’ll tell ya what not to do and then put you back together again when you do it anyway and get hurt. Then I’ll laugh and say ‘told you so’!’ He smiled broadly as he shook Zack’s hand.

Zack looked up at him. Bald as an egg, well over six foot, with the darkest skin Zack had ever seen. Jesus, these guys were intimidating. Though he was approaching six foot himself, he was beginning to feel very insubstantial when faced with these men who obviously spent several hours a day in the gym, whose whole raison d’être was complete physicality. Their bodies and what they could do with them made up their entire profession. 

Zack concentrated on breathing and telling himself there was a place for him, too. He was the actor here, he was the star. It never worked, that one. Every time he thought of himself as a star, the image crumbled a little. He was just himself, just doing what he did, having fun, following lines and movements and direction and playing let’s pretend... he couldn’t believe people thought as highly of him as they did. He wondered if it would ever become real. If he would ever believe the hype...

‘...and this is your stunt double...’ Marco was saying to him. Mike had moved aside to make way for a shorter man who thrust out his hand to take Zack’s.

‘Hi, I’m Trip’ 

‘Trip? That’s a bit of a concern for a stunt man, isn’t it?’ Zack laughed nervously.

Trip smiled ‘Yeah, I get that a lot. It’s not what you think. My initials are T.R.P so I picked the name up long before all of this.’ He gestured around him. ‘Nice to meet you, Zack.’

‘Likewise.’

There was a pause as Zack caught himself studying the face in front of him. There was something about it that caught his attention. Something arresting. He looked away. It was a terrible actor’s habit, this desire to just look, to examine the expressions, the mannerisms. To probe much deeper than the average human being could bear into the person beneath.

‘OK, so we need to check out the set and take a look at today’s sequences for Sam. I don’t think there’s anything planned for you today, Zack. I think you’re gonna need to get Bev to match you and Trip up in the hair department.’ Marco was saying. It was amazing to Zack how much time seemed to be spent doing absolutely nothing of consequence on a film set. Marco was yelling across the space to a young woman with a clipboard. She bustled over to them. 

‘Zack, um, I need you and Trip to get over to hair and get Bev to match you up,’ Marco opened his hands and looked heavenward ‘then we need you back here after lunch to rehearse the office scene we started on Monday.’ She snapped a sheet of paper off her clipboard and handed it to Zack before whisking round and returning to the knot of people in the center of the room.

‘OK!’ Zack called uselessly and a little sarcastically after her. He turned to Trip who grinned. 

‘Busy, busy, busy!’ Trip laughed and folded his arms over his chest.

Zack smiled. He’d been pleasantly surprised earlier when he learned that not all stunt men were meaty and muscle-bound. Though he was quite content to watch them for their eye-candy value. Trip was something different. His voice was lighter than Zack had expected but with a certain studied gravity. His laugh was warm and genuine. Just as he began to look again, Trip unfolded his arms, touched Zack’s elbow and nodded towards the back of the hangar.

‘So we gonna see Bev, get our hair done?’

‘Yeah, sure, I guess so’


	2. Chapter 2

Zack followed obediently, considering to himself how his profession thrust one into awkward social situations that you just had to ride with and make them seem normal. How he was now going to spend the day and beyond with the man who would play him in the most risky of situations, perhaps even take injuries for him and who seemed completely at ease with it all. He looked up.

From behind he could see that they’d chosen his double pretty well. Trip was a little shorter than he was but he was of a similar, slim build. His shoulders broad and straight, well-defined, toned upper arms, taut forearms, lightly dusted with hairs, ropes of veins just visible in the dim light... Zack caught himself just in time. He liked forearms, there was just something about them. He switched his attention to Trip’s neat waist and his stomach did another little clench. He took a sharp breath and quickened his pace to catch up.

‘So you know your way around pretty well?’

‘Yeah, I’ve worked here a few times.’ 

Zack sensed something of an understatement there. Trip seemed to know exactly where he was going and what he was doing. They approached a door at the back of the massive space. Zack would never have even known it was there. Trip pushed though it and out into the binding Californian sunlight. Zack lowered his sunglasses again as the two of them made their way to a separate building Zack was already able to identify as the home of all things make-up, hair and costume-related. He’d spent a whole day with wardrobe a fortnight before being dressed and undressed like a Barbie doll. No, he self-corrected, like a Ken doll; this character was all-man, not like his previous role and the fashion-forward choices the wardrobe department got to make for him. He had a feeling he was rather going to miss the crazy outfits he used to wear. Trip led him along a bland block-walled corridor to an unmarked and utterly insignificant door. After knocking, Trip opened it and peered in. 

‘Aaiiiiieeeeeee!’ came a squeal and a diminutive woman shot out of her chair and clamped her arms around Trip’s waist. ‘How’re you doin’ babe?’ She shrilled into Trip’s chest. 

Trip threw his head back and laughed, Zack noted the smooth line of his throat, very faint shadow of stubble...

‘I’m good, Bev, how’re you?’ He pressed a kiss to the woman’s wild black and crimson hair and artfully disengaged her from his torso.

‘Just peachy, hon, just peachy!’ Bev turned to Zack, ‘Hi, darl, you met your doppelganger, then?’ She grinned broadly.

‘Uh, yeh. You guys know each other, huh?’

‘Oh, we go waaaaaay back!’ Bev raised her eyebrows and cast a cheeky look towards Trip, who grinned in return.

‘So, we need to turn you two into terrible twins, yeah?’ Bev took a step back and looked from Zack to Trip and back again. ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ She nodded ‘Have a seat, boys.’

She gestured to the chairs which stood in front of classic lit mirrors. Though Zack knew she and her team had only been installed at the end of the previous week, they looked to have made themselves right at home. The counters teemed with equipment, brushes, hairpieces on stands, bottles of products, various electrical devices with leads snaking and twining down under the counters. A skinny blonde girl with a retainer on her top teeth stood shyly in the corner, almost unnoticed. Zack smiled at her as he sat in the chair nearest her.

‘Hey Kel, how’re you?’ he asked amiably. 

He’d met Bev’s assistant and trainee when Bev had cut his hair and discussed his character’s ‘look’ the week before. He’d felt like one of those styling heads as he was looked at, had his hair ruffled and rearranged and was finally divested of his sideburns and floppy bangs. He quite liked the new style, it was easy to manage, he just had to run a hand through at the front to make it stand up and he was done. Quite a far cry from the increasingly elaborate and product-cemented up-do’s he’d got used to on his last gig.

‘Hi Zack’s Kelly lisped softly, trying to show as few teeth as she could.  
Zack could tell as soon as he met her that she’d been a big fan of that last show. She was young enough to still find it difficult to detach Zack’s character from the real person. It was quite sweet to see the way her eyes sparkled when he spoke to her and the paralysing awkwardness that overcame her when he was nearby. He figured it would take her at least another two weeks of washing and blow-drying his hair before she would pluck up the courage to ask for his autograph.

Bev was fiddling with the hair at the back of his head. Zack glanced in the mirror to see what she was up to. She appeared to be holding swatches of hair to his head in an attempt to work out the best combination to choose for a good match. When satisfied, she spoke with Kelly, patiently explaining the numbers of the different colors she required and how much of each she needed. Kelly looked momentarily confused and Bev looked back over her shoulder to Zack and Trip.

‘I’ll just be a moment, boys, gonna sort out these colors.’ And she and Kelly disappeared through a partition door into an adjoining room.

Zack swung his chair round to face Trip.

‘So, uh, how do we do this whole stunt double thing? I never had one before.’ 

He mentally kicked himself for not playing it more cool, not shutting up and appearing like he actually knew what he was doing. He still felt like such a babe in the woods.

Trip swung around too. ‘Well, I’m pretty thorough, I guess. I like to get my actor’s movements and mannerisms right so, uh, I’ll be lurking around like some kind of creep just watching you for a bit. It freaks some people out, but there ya go.’ He raised his hands from the armrests in an open gesture. He continued, ‘Some stunt guys just go in and do the stunts, y’know, as long as they pass in long shot, they’re happy but Marco likes his people to be a bit more professional. He sees us as actors too, I guess.’

Zack nodded, more fascinated by the idea of having Trip lurk around watching him than he cared to admit to himself. He squashed the thought.

‘So how long’ve you been doing this?’ He winced at the clichéd question but found himself genuinely interested.

Trip wrinkled his nose in consideration ‘Ummm, about ten years or so...’

Zack was surprised at the answer. ‘What? You started when you were like, fourteen or something?!’

Trip grinned ‘I’m thirty-one, Zack’s

‘No way!’

‘Way!’

Zack studied him in silence for a moment, his eyebrows raised.

‘What?’ Trip was amused at Zack’s disbelief.

‘Sorry, you just look a lot younger... y’know, in a good way...’ 

‘Thanks. I think...’ Trip nodded his head. ‘It’s kinda useful I guess, in my job, I mean. Marco says I’m his most versatile actor. I get to do a lot of the younger kids’ work. Y’know, when they need someone who has my kinda experience but who can pass for a teenager...’ He hesitated ‘...or a girl...’

‘They get a guy to do girls’ stunts?’

‘Sometimes, yeah. In long shot, obviously. Just depends on what’s required and who Marco has available at the time, who fits the bill.’

‘So you’ve worked for Marco for a while?’ 

Zack was beginning to really enjoy digging up this backstory. Trip’s easy grin and relaxed manner made it almost impossible not to ask questions which might have seemed too personal for the first hour of their acquaintance.

‘Yeah, I met him when I was training and he and Bev kinda took me in for a bit, helped me find my feet...’

‘Bev and Marco are...?’

‘Oh, yeah, they’re together. Not married but as good as. A Hollywood partnership made in heaven. I think producers and studios like the idea that they’re kind of a package deal. ‘ 

Trip looked up as Bev and Kelly came back into the room.

‘I was just telling Zack how you and Marco have the whole of Hollywood pretty much tied up.’

Bev smiled, shaking out a black cape and securing it round Trip’s neck.

‘Yep, we do OK. Now all we need is to adopt a few kids who’ll be writers and technicians and investors and we’re set!’ 

She took a bowl from Kelly and proceeded to mash at its contents with a brush.

‘OK Trip, you ready for this? We’re gonna darken you down a little. Shouldn’t take too long. Put a little warmth in there too. We’ll cut it after you’re cooked.’

Trip nodded ‘Yep, sure’.

Zack watched her deft latex-swathed fingers separating locks of hair and coating them in the thick mixture. It was something between painting and pastry-glazing, he mused. Strangely mesmeric. She worked quickly, starting at the front of Trip’s head and finishing up with the shorter hair at the back. When all that was left to cover was the hair right in the nape of Trip’s neck, Zack realised that he had been craning his neck to watch as Bev brushed upwards along the hairline. He glanced over at the mirror to see Trip’s eyes amusedly watching him. Zack half-smiled, a little embarrassed.

‘It’s fascinating. I’ve never watched anyone get their head painted before.’ Zack said. 

Trip raised a single eyebrow as if he saw right through Zack’s innocuous comment. Zack felt uncomfortably certain that Trip knew how strangely thrilled he’d been by the thought of brushing those tiny wisps of hair at the nape of his neck. He suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his own neck prickle and stand to attention...

‘She’s an artist, is Bev’ Trip diffused the moment and Zack flashed a grin across to Kelly, who had been watching with equal concentration, though for somewhat different reasons.

‘OK, Trip. We’ll leave you to cook for twenty minutes or so. Kelly & are gonna go get a coffee. Want us to bring you back something?’

‘No, I’m good thanks.’ Trip replied.

‘Zack?’

‘No thanks, Bev. Uh, is there something I should be doing right about now? I feel a bit useless.’

Bev smiled. ‘You’ll get used to it, hon. There’s a LOT of hanging around at the start, while everything gets organised. You’ll think back on this with longing in a few weeks when you just pulled your second or third twenty-four hour day. Make the most of it. Someone’ll come find you if they need you.’


	3. Chapter 3

Zack nodded as Kelly opened the door and they both left in search of coffee. Once the door clicked to again, he turned to glance at Trip in the mirror. The mixture on his hair was darkening as the dye worked and the way it flattened his hair to his head threw his features into relief. The arresting quality of Trip’s face that Zack had noticed when they first met was a combination of strikingly blue eyes and incredibly sculpted, high cheekbones. He had a pixie-like quality to his face which Zack had heard described in his own features but never really accepted. But this was the real deal. His nose was tip-tilted, the jawline soft and the skin almost flawless. He was beautiful. 

‘Hey, secret thoughts of switching from acting to hairdressing?’ Trip joked, bringing Zack back into the present with a snap.

‘No, not really. Just had one of those reality-check moments.’ Zack massaged his brow with his hand, rubbing his fingertips into his eyes. This was the turning point, he decided. This was the minute to choose if he maintained the professional front with his stunt double and they spent the next few months exchanging pleasantries and talking takes and angles. Or, whether Zack blew the whole gaffe and told Trip how excited he was about being in a Hollywood movie and how terrified he was that he’d mess up and how fairytale-like it was to have a fucking stunt-double. And how much he wanted to stroke those little hairs at the nape of... Oh no, just stop.

‘Um, Trip...?’ Zack began

‘Uh huh?’ Trip looked at Zack in the mirror. He seemed to need that degree of separation for whatever he was about to say.

‘Uh, you’ve done like, loads of movies, right?’

‘Yeah, a fair number. Why?’ That massive down-scaling again.

‘D’you like, get to know the actors that you’re doubling pretty well?’

‘Sometimes. The really big names tend not to talk to grunts like me. The new ones usually like to talk, share the excitement, ask if they’re doing OK, pick up tips. Y’know...’

Trip saw a look of relief pass over Zack’s face. He’d hit the nail on the head. The kid was in Lala land. He’d taken a bite of the Hollywood lotus and discovered that along with the highs came the constant self-doubt. His heart constricted momentarily and Trip clenched his whole body to stop it.

‘I’m kind of used to a big crowd of actors on set, y’know, always having someone around to talk to, to have fun with. There was always pizza in someone’s trailer and we were just so stupid all the time. This is pretty different. I feel like I have to be all grown up, be a real actor.’ Zack glanced up at Trip in the mirror. Trip had been watching him throughout his little speech.

‘You are a real actor, Zack’s

‘Yeah, but d’you know what I mean? I’m this cute character from a TV series that everyone knows and loves, I’m this gay icon, this spokesperson, this role-model for kids and all the time I just feel like this big fraud who fell into this by accident and who just wants to lie around in his bedroom talking about guys...’

‘Yeah, I hear that...’

Both of them looked up at the same moment, as if aware they’d crossed a line. Zack’s eyes widened

‘You’re...’

‘Yeah, I am.’ 

Trip cut him off, looking down. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. In a split second he’d broken about three of his cardinal rules. He’d gotten personal, he’d let someone in and he’d enjoyed it. It was fine to be the actor’s listening ear, fine to give good counsel, to even be an emotional punch-bag when things were going badly. Trip held all kinds of secrets about all kinds of actors, let out in moments of stress or after particularly emotional scenes or personal situations but it was a one-way street. He didn’t reveal anything in return. Ever.

Until now.

Trip’s heart was racing in the back of his throat. The blood rushed in his ears. Adrenaline flooded his system as it did before a particularly challenging drop or fall but this wasn’t the excitement of performing what he knew he did well. This was fear. And anger at himself. And... something else.

In a moment he had gone from the role of mentor; wise, experienced elder, keeper of secrets to... to what? He glanced up at Zack’s face in the mirror; pale, vulnerable, scared maybe... yes... to that. 

‘Would you mind getting me a coffee, Zack?’ Trip reassembled in an instant. Zack wouldn’t have noticed a thing, he was certain. He’d had enough goddamn experience.

‘Oh, sure. How d’you take it?’

Trip threw him a lewd grin, the facade back in place. ‘Strong and black’

Zack glanced at him for a second, making sure the innuendo was entirely intentional and they both laughed.

The ice was broken.

***


	4. Chapter 4

As Zack reached the end of the corridor, the door to the outside swung open. Bev and Kelly were returning with their drinks in Styrofoam cups. 

‘Hi,’ Zack moved aside so they could pass, ‘the canteen’s this way, right?’ He gestured through the open door to the left.

‘Yep, Kelly, why don’t you go show Zack where to go.’ Bev gestured with her head that the girl should lead. ‘All’s I’m doing is rinsing Trip’s color off. Be back soon though, I need your head, Zack.’

As they moved out into the light, Zack tapped Kelly lightly on the arm;

‘P’raps I should just pop my head off for her?’

Kelly giggled without showing her teeth. ‘That’s funny.’ She added.

‘Does it take long to learn your way around here?’ Zack asked.

‘No, not long. It’s pretty easy once you know. There’s a lot of walking though. Some people bring bikes.’ Kelly ventured to look across to Zack, her bangs over her eyes.  
‘Really? Now there’s a good idea. P’raps we should, like, all bring Razr scooters or something?’

Kelly nodded eagerly, clearly thrilled at the idea of herself and Zack scootering around the backlot.

‘There’s the canteen’ She nodded towards a large trailer with a hatch and counter along the front. Zack nodded his thanks, despite the fact that once out of the building he’d immediately oriented himself and knew exactly where he was going.

‘You wanna donut or something to go with that?’ he asked Kelly, indicating her coffee cup.

Her eyes lit up. ‘Oh, yes please! Thanks!’

She and Zack joined the short line of people waiting at the counter.

***

Bev swung into the room, spilling coffee on the floor despite the lid on the cup she was carrying.

‘Aw, shit, that’s hot!’ she hissed. Trip laughed as she place the cup on the cluttered counter, shaking her hands free of drips.

‘So, did he leave or didja throw him out?’ 

‘Hey, no fair! Neither!’ Trip acted all indignant at the implied accusations.

‘Boy, I am NOT either blind or stupid, Trip. I could smell the raw testosterone from the backlot.’

‘Beverly!’ Trip looked outraged.

‘Aww, c’mon kid. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.’

‘What from him or me?’ Trip was suddenly confused. He was pretty used to Bev poking fun at him about perceived lecherous glances or guys he’d worked with but there was something that felt different this time. Usually it was all in fun. Trip didn’t let himself feel, he certainly didn’t let himself show it.

‘Bit of both, I’d say...’ Bev folded her arms over her chest and cocked an enquiring look at him, probing him with her eyes.

‘Get outta here!’ Trip reached out to flick her with the back of his hand and she jumped back adroitly.

‘Yeah, well, just sayin’...’ Bev grabbed a pair of gloves from the counter and slipped them on, stepping back towards Trip and wiping a lock of his hair to check the color.

Trip sat silently, looking into his own eyes in the mirror. It was very rapidly all getting too risky. He began to feel just a bit out of control. Bev was utterly trustworthy and knew him better than anyone else in the world. Except perhaps, Marco. Between them, they’d been like his later-in-life adoptive parents, supporting him, nursing his injuries in the early days, advising him on a myriad of issues but this was the first time he actually felt a twinge of real uncertainty, fear, vulnerability.

And not just for himself.

‘C’mon, time to rinse you off.’ Bev all but dragged him off the chair and through to the adjoining room which had three hairwash sinks along the left hand wall. Trip let Bev swathe his neck in towels and arrange his head in the notch at the front edge of the basin.

‘Heat OK for you?’

‘Yeah, fine’ It was actually a bit cold but Trip wasn’t really focussing on the water. His mind was a long, long way away as he began to recall the last time he’d tried to let someone else into his life, then the time before that and then further back still...

***


	5. Chapter 5

He’d known from as far back as he could remember. 

Maybe four or five, maybe before that. Almost as soon as he realised there was a difference between boys and girls and that they were expected to dress differently and play differently and act differently. His mom and dad didn’t seem to notice for a while that there was something significantly wrong; when their child acted outside of the expected parameters, they simply put it down to being young, having to learn, needing to do more of the right stuff. He’d begun to rail against it, but that just got him a slap on the behind so he went with the flow, developing a rich fantasy life in which his true self could flourish unhindered. By High School, things were getting significantly awkward. He grew increasingly depressed and withdrew further and further into his fantasy existence. As puberty really kicked in, all hell began to break loose.

The teasing, the taunting and the bullying he could handle. It was beginning to feel like the real world was actually the fantasy so it was easier to shrug off the awful names, the cruel jokes, but not the complete and utter aloneness of his existence. It was even easier to manage the physical hurts when they came. The constant shoves into walls, lockers, furniture. The endless feet stuck out and the resulting grazed hands and knees and then the fist in the face on the way back from the senior prom. It was all artfully explained away to his parents as they gazed upon their child with blind incomprehension.

The summer of High School graduation, he decided something had to give. He knew he had to get out, he could keep it up no longer. 

It was a hot evening, dressed in jeans and a shirt, he was sitting under the apple tree in the yard when his mom came out carrying two glasses of lemonade. She’d asked what the book was and if everything was OK at school and all the small things. Then, with an exceptionally deep breath, she gathered all the emotional energy she had and asked:

‘Sweetie, do you think you might be a-a lesbian?’

For her, this was a brave move, he later reflected. It was so completely outside her realm of acceptance that it was probably the most awful thing she could imagine. Had his dad been home she never would have dreamed of broaching the subject. It was an aberration, against God, not even to be countenanced. Her eyes betrayed the risk she was taking and he knew she wouldn’t really have wanted to know if that had been the truth for his dad would have probably taken it out on both of them. She furrowed her brow, not comprehending the blank look facing her.

‘You... you know what that is, right?’ she ventured.

He had laughed and laughed and laughed. It felt like a kind of release, he couldn’t stop himself. He laughed despite the look of sheer incomprehension and hurt on his mother’s face, he had laughed until he was unable to catch his breath and black spots swam before his eyes, he had laughed until he was practically sobbing.

‘No, mom, I’m not a lesbian. I’m- oh God... I’m a guy...’

Expressions fought their way across his mom’s face, it twitched and twisted as she struggled to respond, to say something, anything.

Eventually

‘What???’ she gasped ‘You’re not a guy! What d’you mean?’

‘Mom, I’m a boy. I know that makes no sense to you but I’m, like, a boy in a girl’s body.’ He paused, weighing the word: ‘Transgender... I always have been, I’ve always known. It’s why I wear boy’s clothes and I don’t date and I don’t talk to you or dad or anyone and I don’t have any friends and everyone teases me and I live in my room and I wear this fucking binder every day and I hate my body and I hate my life and I hate myself...’

Years of tears began to pour down his cheeks. Once again, the tightness around his chest made it hard to breathe but the sobs would not stop. He didn’t even see his mother rise shakily to her feet and return to the house, pausing sensibly to pick up the lemonade glasses as she went.

He’d allowed the sobs to gradually lessen before swiping at his sore eyes and blundering from the yard via the side gate, almost running onto the sidewalk and up the road, not really aware of where he was heading, just away.

As he had stalked the neighbourhood with long, anguished strides, his fantasy self spoke quite rationally to his real self, arguing that his mom might understand, now he’d told her, she might tell his dad, they might welcome him back into the house with open arms as a son, rather than a daughter. That he might return to school to finish the year without fear of reprisals, that it was all going to be OK now...

But that was a fantasy. It hadn’t been OK now. Not at all.

He’d returned to the house some two hours later, as the shadows were lengthening and a chill began to nip at the air. Approaching, he could see that his father’s car was back in the driveway, he was home from work. The next thing that caught his eye was the wheeled suitcase the family used for trips away. The big one that used to fit all their stuff when he was a little...girl. The tears threatened to well up again but he shoved them down. Beside the case was an open box. Casting a glance into it as he came closer, he recognised the contents of his shelves, odd books, figures from collectable series, an X-Wing model he’d made in fourth grade...

The front porch door clicked open and his mom started to step through, only to be pushed roughly out of the way by his father, his face contorted in rage and disgust.

‘Get off my drive you fucking freak. I don’t know you and you are NOT welcome in my house.’ He snarled in a voice that was low and evil and ragged. It continued, louder:

‘I had a daughter, Tracey, she wasn’t much of a daughter, kinda ugly, tomboy, weird. We thought she was a fucking dyke...’ he spat the word like poison ‘..but at least you can cure that, at least you can get someone to FUCK that outta her... but this... this..!’ he gestured spastically towards the broken figure in front of him ‘This is just.. just... FUCK!’

He clenched his fists and began to tense up, ropey sinews popping on his forearms.

Trip hadn’t stayed for the inevitable conclusion. He’d leaped clear of the punch, hefted the box to his aching, bound chest, grabbed the handle of the wheeled case and fled. Once again, simply heading away.

He’d ended up at school. It was the only other place he could think of to go. It was closed up so he’d dragged himself round the side by the dumpsters and spent an exhausted, sleepless night of despair clutching the X-Wing surrounded by the smell of decay.

The last three weeks of school had been salvaged by his English teacher who had found him the next morning as she pulled into the parking lot. She asked no questions, preferring to draw her own conclusions. He had told her that he’d been kicked out but offered no more details and she allowed him to sleep on the couch in her tiny one-bedroom apartment until after graduation. She’d kindly offered to pay if her guest would clean and do laundry in return. By the time Trip was able to leave, he had enough money for a bus ticket to the city and a little to live on.


	6. Chapter 6

‘TRIP! I said we’re done!’ Bev loomed into his view upside down from behind the sink.

‘Oh, right’ he sat up, disoriented for a moment.

‘Where were you, hon?’ Bev appeared right-way-up, concern in her eyes.

‘Miss Butler’s apartment’ he murmured softly.

‘Ohh, right. You’ve come a long way.’ Bev got it straight away. Trip was so grateful that he didn’t have to explain, all that had been done a long time ago. Bev squeezed his arm as she propelled him forward, wrapping the towel around his sleek, wet hair.

‘C’mon, Zack is back, let’s get you matched up.’ She smiled gently.

Trip felt Zack’s eyes light upon him as soon as he passed through the door. 

Trip felt kind of raw after his flashback, somehow emotionally naked, despite the fact that it had all been inside his head. He resolved to keep it all there. He’d done all the processing he needed to do. Done the talking therapy, accepted himself, his gender identity, his past...

‘Looking good’ Zack observed, indicating Trip’s hair.

‘Thanks. She does a great job.’ Trip smiled at Bev. He found himself meaning so much more by the comment than Zack would ever imagine.

‘OK, we’ll give you a blast and then do a trim.’ Bev switched on the dryer and Trip relaxed into the warmth and the sureness of Bev’s touch.

Shortly afterwards, Bev told Zack to sit still as she swiftly and artfully snipped and checked, snipped and checked until both haircuts looked identical.

‘Cool’ said Zack, looking at Trip in the mirror once again. ‘I always wanted a twin!’

Trip laughed.

‘We done, Bev?’ 

She brushed off his neck and swept the cape off his shoulders.

‘Yep, all done. Thanks boys.’

‘Thank you, Bev. That was great to watch!’ Zack said sincerely as he and Trip made to leave the room.

‘Don’t forget these!’ Kelly grabbed Zack’s sunglasses from where he’d put them on the counter and handed them over.

‘Thanks, Kelly.’ Zack flashed her an extra sweet smile ‘And thanks for sharing donuts with me.’ With a conspiratorial wink he turned and followed Trip down the corridor.

‘Donuts, huh? So you won’t be wanting any lunch then?’ Trip said as they stood in the midday glare of the backlot.

Zack settled his shades on his nose and shook his head. 

‘Actually, I’m starving. What time is it?’

‘Quarter after twelve’ replied Trip, checking his watch. Chunky, outdoorsy, probably waterproof and shockproof thought Zack, allowing himself just a little glance at the arm upon which the watch was fastened.

‘You left-handed, Trip?’ he asked.

‘No, why?’

‘You wear your watch on your right wrist. Most people fasten their watches with their dominant hand, so they wear them on the opposite one. Just the kind of thing I tend to notice.’ Zack had a slight sense that he was babbling.

‘Oh, right. Yeah, I guess so. I broke my fingers a couple years back so had to switch over. Never got around to switching back’ He flexed the fingers on his right hand as if to demonstrate that they were all better now.

‘Scars?’ Zack asked, conversationally as they made their way over to the canteen hatch.

Trip held out his hand, displaying three white lines, one on each of the middle fingers.

‘They kinda had to put them back together again’ he mugged ruefully. ‘I was a dumbass and didn’t get a fall right, I broke all the rules, put my hand out to break the impact and kinda... crunch.’

‘Eeeow, ouch!’ Zack felt his balls wanting to retract into his body at the thought of the impact and the sound Trip was describing. Really not pleasant.

They joined the line for lunch which was significantly longer than earlier. Mainly crew and technicians and the endless streams of young women with clipboards who seemed to think they kept the place running smoothly. And who probably did. 

There was a handful of mismatched outdoor tables and chairs in the sun in front of the catering van. Assorted people were seated, eating, chatting, smoking. Zack looked up to the side of the van where a prominent ‘No Smoking’ sign was displayed. Fighting something of a losing battle, he felt.

‘Hey guys!’ Marco called across to them from one of the tables. ‘Looking awesome! I can hardly tell the diff.’

Trip cuffed him on the shoulder and Zack had the sense that this was a standard comment at this time in a production.

‘So you need me this afternoon?’ Trip asked him.

‘Nah, some shit going down with Tom and Kate that Sam wants to deal with. You can take off if you like. Go have fun, go see a movie!’ Marco gestured widely at the whole of the backlot and the irony of the suggestion was not lost on Zack and Trip.

‘Yeah, let’s do that!’ mugged Trip ‘Cos we don’t see enough movies and I NEVER know how they do those fucking stunts without killin’ themselves...!’

Marco threw his head back and guffawed. ‘You’re crazy, kid.’

‘Yeah, I work for you!’ Trip threw back affectionately as they walked away.

‘I’m supposed to be back for a rehearsal after lunch.’ Zack reminded Trip.

‘Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, we can still do lunch. You wanna go for some real food? Grab some pizza or sushi or something?’

‘Maybe not pizza, not on top of donuts. I could murder some kind of salady thing though.’ Zack replied.

‘OK, shall I drive?’

As they headed over to the parking lot, Trip turned to Zack. 

‘Hey, you need a BC?’

Zack stared ‘A what now?’

‘A BC. A thug, a bodyguard. Someone to keep the fans at bay. I dunno if you have one.’ Trip shrugged.

‘Oh, um I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve left the lot on this one except to go home. And what’s a BC?’

‘Bullet Catcher. It’s kind of a funny in entertainment security. They usually deflect more screaming girls than bullets to be honest.’

Zack grinned. He’d had his fair share of that in the past. Hopefully the teeny fandom had died away a little in the year since the last season had aired. He certainly wasn’t papped as much as he used to be. The fickle finger of fame.

‘Oh, never mind’ Trip was saying, ‘Let’s just abscond, I’ll watch your back.’

However, as he said it, Zack noticed over Trip’s shoulder that a substantial black man in jeans and a plaid shirt was striding towards them. As he caught up he explained, slightly apologetically:

‘Uh, I’m Boots, I uh, I need to go with you, sir. You want me to drive you?’

‘Do you have to drive him?’ Trip queried, squinting up at the guy.

‘No sir, but I need to know which vehicle you’ll be taking and I need you to wait for me. Studio rules. It’s in your contract, sir.’ Boots looked straight at Zack who bit his lip in mock guilt.

Trip pointed across the lot to a red and white VW Campervan. ‘I’ll be driving that vehicle. You won’t have any trouble tailing me. It has a maximum speed of fifty and all the manoeuvrability of a loaf of bread.’

Zack spluttered with laughter. This was turning out to be fun!

‘Yes sir.’ Boots nodded, smiling slightly as he headed over to a rank of identical black SUVs. ‘I’ll keep mine in first gear so’s I can keep up.’

Trip and Zack yawped at each other in mock outrage.

‘Just for that I’m gonna take her up to the max!’ shouted Trip as he raced over to the camper. 

He headed round to the far side of the cab and Zack was about to comment when he noticed that the steering wheel was on the right.

‘It’s a right hand drive? How do you even do that? Isn’t everything the wrong way round?’ 

‘You get used to it’ 

Trip unlocked the passenger door and Zack was surprised at the height he had to climb up to get into his seat. The classic vehicle had a wonderful, old-fashioned smell to it. Like holidays, somehow. Gasoline and vinyl and slightly damp carpet.

Trip swung himself into the driver’s seat and waggled the gear shift to check it was in neutral. After fastening his seatbelt, he keyed the ignition and turned it over. The throaty engine rumbled into life and they lurched out of the parking space.


	7. Chapter 7

‘So where we heading?’ 

Trip turned to Zack as they waited at the exit barrier from the studio’s parking lot. The guard scanned the security card lodged between the dashboard and windshield with a hand-held device before waving them through. Trip checked the tiny rear-view to ensure they had their tail. The huge black SUV was hard to miss.

‘I have no idea! Take me to salad!’ 

Trip smiled as he shifted gears and the van surged forward.

Zack was feeling a little like a kid who’d skipped school. He found himself thoroughly enjoying his high viewpoint from the cab of the old VW, the wind whipping in through the open window. (No air-con in 1972 Trip had laughingly told him as he tried to adjust the fan vent) Hollywood and its environs slid by in the blazing sunshine and he felt his eyelids begin to droop.

***

‘Hey, wake up sleepyhead!’ Zack heard Trip saying suddenly. He raised his head, self-consciously wiping the edge of his mouth. 

‘Please don’t let me have been caught drooling’ he murmured.

‘You were spark out, there buddy.’ Trip grinned

‘How long.... where are we?’ Zack looked out the window. He could see the ocean.

‘Not that long, but you clocked out almost the second we left. Bad night?’ 

‘No, not really. I just never get the chance to relax like that, I guess. I always used to fall asleep on car journeys when I was a kid.’ Zack unclipped his seatbelt and looked over at Trip ‘So, where are we going for lunch?’

‘Place that makes the most awesome sandwiches, salads and snacky things. I think you’ll like it.’ Trip jumped down from the cab, locked his door and walked round to the passenger side. ‘No central locking in 1972, either.’

Trip led them along the jumbled rows of shops and stalls which faced out to the sparkling water. Turning left into a deeply shaded arcade, he followed it as it curved right and stopped at an open counter displaying a mouth-wateringly colorful and exotic array of salads and sandwich fillings.

They havered over their choices and combinations. Each time Trip chose something to have in his sandwich that Zack hadn’t spotted, Zack changed his order to include it. Eventually the large Polynesian-looking man behind the counter, who appeared to have endless patience with his fickle customers, handed them carefully-wrapped but absolutely enormous parcels containing their sandwiches. They grabbed a couple of Diet Cokes, paid up and called their thanks over their shoulders as they walked back out into the light.

Trip walked slightly ahead, knowing where he planned to eat and suddenly threw himself down on a narrow strip of grass, in the shade of a rather scrubby looking bush.

‘You mind sitting on the grass?’ Trip asked as he began to cautiously unwrap his sandwich.

‘No, not at all. It’s lovely.’ 

Zack glanced over his shoulder as he chose a spot to sit down. Boots was looking ridiculously conspicuous, perched on a low wall a few yards from them. Zack felt a bit sorry for him, having to follow their capricious and unpredictable whims. Still, he mused, it was one way to make a living and Zack was kinda glad he was there.

Zack stretched his long legs out on the dry, prickly grass and tackled the monumental task of trying to eat without spilling or choking or otherwise making a fool of himself.

It just wasn’t possible. As he was rescuing some alfalfa sprouts that had escaped onto his thigh, Trip let out a snuffling laugh and several large chunks of cucumber slid out of the far end of his own sandwich onto his lap. The pair of them simply looked at one another and burst into helpless laughter, food cascading around them onto the grass. As fast as they could rescue one thing, another seemed to fall out. By the time they had more-or-less finished eating, they were surrounded by and covered in scraps of food, smears of mayonnaise and their eyes were running with tears of laughter. 

***

And so it began.

***


	8. Chapter 8

After the apparent chaos of the first week of filming, things began to settle into more of a working pattern. Zack arrived on set, rehearsed, shot takes, re-shot takes, re-shot them again, ate lunch from the canteen, kicked back in his trailer, rehearsed, shot and so on. Repeated in an infinite number of variations. There were location shoots in the city, in the hills, at night. Bev’s prediction about him looking back with longing to the earlier idle hours had been uncannily accurate as he found himself at 3am swathed in a blanket on a chilly roadside verge awaiting the conclusion of 36 hours of continuous work only briefly punctuated by hour-long naps in his trailer.

He’d managed to wrench his back whilst doing a close-up stunt fall from a wall, despite having followed Marco’s meticulously detailed instructions and demonstrations. Trip had laughed when he heard about it.

‘Ha, you get used to it, kid. Take the painkillers and slap on the heat pack, lie down for a day and then do it all over again!’

He’d watched Trip doing a couple of stunts as his character and been frankly astounded by what he was able to do without actually killing himself. 

One morning Zack had come onto the backlot to find a huge crane and platform had been constructed, footed with a massive blue crash cushion. He saw Trip and Marco, deep in discussion at the side of the cushion, which towered above both of them. Trip looked utterly focussed as Marco used hand gestures to punctuate whatever instructions he was giving. Zack saw Trip nod once, before climbing into the cradle that raised him up to the platform at the top of the crane. He was up there for a good half hour whilst lights and camera angles were set up. Four different cameras were trained on the drop, two at ground level and two mounted on cranes. Trip was doing one rehearsal fall and one for real, both filmed, in case the practice yielded better results. Zack found himself thinking, rather bleakly, that they also filmed the rehearsal fall in case of accidents...

He shook the thought from his head and reminded himself that this was what Trip had been doing on every film he’d worked on for ten years. It was just what he did. And he seemed pretty good at it. 

Marco was talking to Trip via a headset microphone, letting him know what was going on down on the ground. Eventually, everything seemed ready and Zack looked skywards to see Trip remove his headset and hand it to Mike who also stood on the platform. He moved to the edge and stood still. Sam, the director had been standing in his customary huddle of people not far off and Zack saw him grab a megaphone from someone and shout instructions to the crew so that Trip could hear. Finally he yelled skywards to let Trip know that it was all ready for him. Trip gave a thumbs up and fixed his gaze on Marco, far below him. Zack felt increasingly apprehensive as he waited for Trip to fall. Though he had no real fear of heights himself, there was something counter-intuitive about waiting for a guy to deliberately throw himself such a ridiculous distance to the ground. Albeit to a huge blue cushion...

Marco raised his arms high in the air. As he dropped them, Zack saw Trip take a deep breath and prepare, then he dived, head first from the platform. With almost balletic grace, Trip executed a roll and spin in the air, before making a perfect landing on his back, deep into the cushion. Applause burst from some of the watchers as Trip rolled towards the side of the huge inflatable, grabbed a canvas handle and lowered himself to the ground. Marco went over and once again they seemed to be discussing the fall. This time Trip was more animated, miming rolls with his hands. Zack found himself breathing heavily as his body tried to clear the built-up adrenaline. 

He felt slightly heady now that one fall had been completed, almost as if he’d done the stunt himself. From this distance, Trip hadn’t noticed him watching and Zack was glad that Trip’s back was turned for it offered him the opportunity to just look. 

True to his initial warning, Trip had spent a lot of time on set during that first week, just watching Zack work, move and stand. Zack was aware of the scrutiny but not disturbed by it. He knew that the best thing he could do was to continue working to give Trip the best and truest example of his movements and mannerisms possible.

However, this was the first time Zack had felt able to really watch Trip. Other than sneaked glances, they were either too close for it to feel comfortable or Zack had been working. After that first week they hadn’t been on set together very much. They’d managed to grab a coffee once or twice at the canteen and Zack had endeavoured to turn the conversation towards things slightly more personal. Trip had seemed rather cagey though, side-stepping the question about relationships with a curt ‘I live alone’ and not even engaging when Zack tried to lightly suggest they go out for a drink one evening. It was frustrating as Zack himself didn’t really know what he was doing, whether it was the professional thing to get chummy with one’s stunt double. But he just thought they got on well and he wanted to explore that. And the guy was very cute....

Even at a distance, Zack could see the definition of Trip’s shoulders and upper arms through his grey tee shirt. He wasn’t overly muscled like Marco, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. His frame was slender and his waist surprisingly narrow. Zack felt his stomach do a little hitch as he imagined how it would be to put his hands on that waist and feel the firmness and strength of the muscles beneath. Then his eyes slid lower to that neat little ass, without a doubt as firm and toned as the rest of the body...

Trip was walking once again towards the cradle that had been lowered to the ground. Back up it went and there was another short delay while Sam finished checking the footage of the previous drop and slightly altering the camera angles.

Then, once again, the megaphone materialised and instructions were shouted. A brief pause as Marco and Trip locked eyes and then he was falling and tumbling in the air again. Zack couldn’t have told the difference between one fall and the other. Trip seemed to spin and twist at exactly the same points in the drop and he landed again right in the center of the crash cushion, right on his back, emerging a moment later and climbing down as if just getting out of bed. Once again a scattering of applause and Marco shook his hand as it was clear all had gone the way Sam wanted it. Zack was about to turn away, a little concerned that he’d be caught spying but as Trip clapped Marco on the shoulder, he called over

‘Hey, Zack, wait up!’ and jogged across.

‘Didja watch me? How’d it look?’ He looked exultant and flushed. Zack guessed that falling from a great height a couple times and not getting killed would do that to a guy.

‘Amazing. Terrifying. I am in total awe.’ Zack told him truthfully.

Trip grinned. ‘Ah, it’s a job, ya know? Got time to grab a coffee?’

Zack checked his watch. ‘I have to be back in twenty five minutes so yeah, a quick one.’

‘Cool.’

They headed towards the canteen.

Over coffee and a shared donut Zack asked Trip about his stunt training and the variety of work he’d done in the past. Trip spoke with an animation that showed how passionately he loved his work. He told of how Marco and Bev had taken him in when he’d arrived in the city, after meeting Marco by chance when Trip was applying for a job at a gym. How Marco had apparently seen potential and someone who would train and work in return for board and lodging. Marco had just been setting up his business, having himself been a stunt actor. Zack noted that Trip spoke freely about himself in regard to his profession, but let out very little personal information.

Trip sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee.

‘So, you seem to be settling pretty well. You enjoying filming?’

‘Oh yeah. I’m loving it. It’s fun to play someone so completely different. Weird but fun.’

‘...and no singing or dancing’ grinned Trip, referring to Zack’s previous role.

‘I miss the singing but not the dancing so much. I gotta say though, I really should fit in a few more visits to the gym or I’m gonna lard out. At least the dancing kept me fit. I lost inches in season one!’

‘Well, Marco can give you a few pointers, I’m sure’

Zack looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure the studio sees me pumped up like Marco’

Trip laughed ‘No, I didn’t mean...’

The image of Zack with Marco’s physique was so wonderfully incongruous that as it struck them both they once again found themselves sharing the easy laughter that had characterised their lunch trip together several weeks before.

Zack looked at his watch as he composed himself. 

‘I’d better go, Trip. Um, can we catch up over pizza or something one night next week? I’m doing days...’ it was as free from pressure as he could manage as Trip had seemed to evade all previous invitations.

‘OK, I’d like that.’ 

‘Can I get your number?’ Zack’s heart flipped the tiniest bit as he said it. Such a classic teen romance line, the first step to who knew what...? His first real opportunity to try it out. He swiftly told himself to get a grip and pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. They exchanged phone numbers and Zack returned to the soundstage hangar, leaving Trip to finish his coffee, his heart pounding in alarm.

***


	9. Chapter 9

Trip slowly finished his coffee and waited for his heartbeat to slow down. Again, he’d overstepped his own mark. He’d resisted the urge to take Zack up on the offers of meals out, trips to the movies, a Saturday morning tooling around an outlying shopping mall where Zack had found a welcome sense of anonymity. But now due to another moment’s lapse in concentration and an overwhelming urge to connect with someone... it had been so long.... he was committed to a night out with Zack. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he desperately wanted to take Zack up on every one of his offers and more. He found himself imagining how things could have been in a different life... a life in which he hadn’t been cursed with the wrong body. Or a life which could never possibly exist in which he would be accepted as he was. 

He thought ruefully back to five years previously when he thought such a life existed. Naively believed that he could get close to someone and then let them discover... 

Trip had got to the stage back then where he was really feeling that he’d made it. 

Two years of training with Marco, helping out with the business, picking up bits and pieces and learning all the while, followed by five years as one of the company’s most requested stunt actors. Two years of a safe place to live whilst he saved enough money to put a down payment on a small apartment and move into his own place. Two years, three, four and onward, of comfort and support from Bev, whilst between them they navigated the maze of networks open to those in Trip’s situation. Support groups and websites for female to male transgender people, some useful, others not so much. The decision to start testosterone injections, the ups and the downs of watching as his body gradually and subtly altered to one which he recognised a little better. The counselling and therapy to help him accept himself and pass as a man. The voice coaching, the fascinating acting classes Marco had fixed up for him to learn a more masculine way of moving. The anguished sessions with the doctors, with the friends he’d made and with himself as he slowly, but with increasing certainty, made the choice not to opt for surgery. The tricks he learned with a chest binder, thanking the universe that once the male hormone had kicked in and with the punishing amount of time he was spending working out, he didn’t have all that much to hide. The experimentation with packing to create a realistic-looking male bulge in his pants. Trip grinned at the memory of Bev and he handling a prosthetic cock and balls for the first time. They’d squished and squeezed in wonder before finally tossing the packer back and forth between them in shrieking delight. Trip often didn’t bother now, it depended on what he was wearing and where he was going. No-one got close enough for it to be an issue...

But once they had.

The added twist that Trip had been straight as a girl and hadn’t changed his preference as a guy led to many late night rambling conversations with his transgender friends. Many of the transmen he knew had identified as lesbian before transition so seemed to find it a little easier to find partners and playmates. If you could pass as a man and you wanted a woman, it just kinda looked right. Women seemed to have fewer issues when they found out their boyfriend was a little differently arranged from how they expected. Men? Well, men could be tricky.

Trip didn’t like to announce anything. Maybe it would have made everything easier but he didn’t feel comfortable with the whole, ‘Hi, I’m Trip and I’m transgender’ thing. He was a man. Plain and simple. He was in a body that disagreed with most peoples’ perception of the statement, but he was a man. Besides, if you went looking for love by announcing what you were, you seemed to get all the curious ones and the thrill-seekers and the frankly freaky ones. So he passed as a man and believed that when the right person came along, they would love him for what he was. 

Richard had not been that ‘right person’. Not by a long chalk.

They’d met in a club, dancing together to thunderous music for several Friday nights until after closing time one early morning, they had exchanged numbers and begun to meet up for dates. Trip was starting to fall, hard, and he worried about how he was going to tell Richard. Richard was kind, attentive, thoughtful. He bought flowers and wine. He respected Trip’s confession that this was his first serious relationship and was happy to take things slowly. It really seemed that both of them were falling in love. 

One evening after a couple of glasses of a particularly nice rose, they were making out on the couch, Trip, as usual, being careful about which parts of his body came into contact with Richard’s. Richard had talked softly as they kissed, Trip had tentatively sent out feelers of a ‘could I tell you anything and you’d still love me?’ nature, all the while being convinced that Richard loved him and his physical gender wouldn’t be an issue, all the time getting more and more turned on and desperate to touch Richard, to shed his clothes and feel their skin pressed together, to have Richard’s cock in his mouth and to feel him come hard down his throat. His female body was responding in its treacherous and intense way, his cunt wet and swollen, his clit like the tiniest of cocks, hard and rubbing against his underwear with a delicious friction.

He seized the moment, pulling back off the couch, gasping with desire ‘Rich, there’s something you need to know about me...’

Rich had looked immediately alarmed, sat up and said ‘Oh fuck, you’re HIV positive’

‘No... No, I-I’m trans...’ It was such a tiny admission. So insignificant as they obviously felt so much for each other, so desperately wanted to touch each other...

Rich was off the couch in a second. ‘What? WHAT??? You’re a fucking WOMAN??? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Rich I, no, I’m... I have... I’m...’ Trip didn’t know what to say, he was so shocked and scared at the suddenness of Richard’s reaction. 

Richard continued to rage but all Trip heard was the anger at having felt so misled, betrayed. He accused Trip of leading him on, of trying to deprive him of his masculinity, even of having some kind of ulterior motive to ‘cure’ his attraction to men. He went on and on and on, throwing accusations and hurling abuse at Trip and transgender people in general. He was still yelling as he grabbed his coat and backed to the door, letting himself out before practically hurling himself down the stairs in his desperation to escape.  
Trip was still gaping on the sofa, his heart pounding in his ears, his breath coming in shallow gasps, too stunned to feel anything but sheer shock.

The tears and the hurt and the anguish and the feeling that he had been so damn stupid came later along with the resolve to never let anyone into his heart ever again. Bev had listened and consoled and encouraged but the hurt had been too much. Trip made his set of rules and aside from a single brief liaison characterised by a one-sided arrangement for oral sex, that had been it. 

After another few years and by throwing himself, literally, into his work and his friendships and his campervan, Trip felt he had succeeded in creating the man he truly was. No-one was allowed to come close enough to see the artifice. Bev and Marco knew, some of his fellow stunt actors knew but were discrete, the local hospital knew because they’d had to patch him up a couple of times and cutting off his shirt to tend to broken ribs kind of gave the game away somewhat.

It had worked well. Until now. Until that day Trip had caught Zack looking right at him, into him somehow, moments after they had been first introduced.


	10. Chapter 10

Trip finished his lukewarm coffee, vaguely aware that he’d been woolgathering as he tried to calm his nerves. It was funny, really, how something so small as agreeing to go out for a pizza should rattle him so much, whereas dropping from the kind of height most people would consider suicidal simply gave him a thrill. It was his substitute, Trip reflected as he got up. Instead of the heart-flipping, stomach-clenching excitement of getting close to another person, he’d trained his body to love what he did for a living. His daily visit to the gym was like a drug, the drops and stairfalls, car tumbles and fire-walks were his sex. Not quite the same but pretty good. It was just that nothing could replace having someone close... Trip dropped his habitual emotional shutter heavily on the thought. 

But as he walked unthinkingly and automatically towards the hair and make-up department, tendrils of thought crept under that shutter... a half smile, a touch on the arm, a covert glance, the sound of Zack’s high laughter ringing across the lot...

Trip almost couldn’t see by the time he threw back the door to Bev’s little domain.

‘Whoa, Mister!’ She yelped in surprise as Trip practically fell into the room. ‘Trip?’

He automatically glanced round for Kelly or anyone else who might be in the room and then plonked down heavily in a chair, squeezing his eyes with thumb and forefinger to clear his vision.

‘Hey sweetie, what’s up? You startled me.’ Bev began.

‘I’m an idiot is what’s up, but that’s hardly news...’ Trip spat out, his voice breathless with emotion. He remained bent over for a moment or two as he collected himself somewhat. 

Bev folded her arms and leaned back against the counter, waiting. She knew she wasn’t going to get any kind of sense whilst Trip was emotionally beating himself up like this. He went on, looking up at her.

‘I’m a grade one idiot, I can’t keep my mouth fucking shut and I can’t leave well alone.’

Bev quirked an eyebrow.

‘I agreed to go for a pizza with Zack. He gave me his number and everything.’

‘...and?’

‘And nothing! That’s not enough of a fuck up? We both know how spectacularly well things work out for me in these situations!’ Trip’s voice escalated.

Bev hesitated a second ‘You don’t think you’re over-reacting just a little, Trip? It’s just pizza.’

‘Yeah, but it’s not...’ Trip once again caught her gaze and she saw the deep longing in his eyes, the pained furrow between his eyebrows. No, it wasn’t just pizza. Bev nodded.

‘You like him?’

Trip exhaled but said nothing. There was a long pause.

Bev shifted against the counter, unfolding her arms and reaching behind her to rest on her hands. She glanced at the floor, contemplating, and then looked up

‘He likes you, too, Trip.’

Trip’s heart clenched and he caught his breath. He swallowed the feeling down.

‘No, he likes who he thinks I am.’ He replied in low voice.

Another long pause whilst Bev studied the crumpled figure in front of her.

‘Just go for pizza with him, Trip. Maybe you can talk to him...?’

Trip shook his head slowly, a rueful smile. ‘Yeah, cuz we know how that goes.’

‘He’s a nice kid, give him a chance. Just have pizza.’

Trip looked at Bev’s reflection in the mirror. Maybe she was right. Maybe he could act well enough for it to just be pizza, maybe he was over-reacting. Besides, Zack was just a kid. Trip had almost ten years on him. He had to play the adult in this situation. Trip needed to man up and teach Zack that a superstar Hollywood name couldn’t just crush on his stuntman. They couldn’t do stuff that might impact Zack’s career. They couldn’t run the risk of the press kicking the rumor mill into action. If they were seen together more than a couple of times it could get mighty sticky. And it would take seconds for some smart hack to dig up and twist Trip’s backstory into a really tasty spoiler. One night out for pizza to explain this was OK. If they were spotted, it wouldn’t be a big deal as long as it didn’t happen again. And Trip wouldn’t let it happen again. He’d re-established his role, reminded himself of the character he played in this, run through his lines and locked his heart back up in its armoured box.

‘Yeah, OK, I might just do that. Thanks, Bev. Love ya.’ Trip swung himself out of the chair with renewed energy, gave Bev a quick hug and strode out of the room again. 

Reassembled, reassured and refocused.


	11. Chapter 11

The following Wednesday, Zack had taken full advantage of the perks that working for a big studio could offer. He’d got a driver, a big, black SUV and Boots to ensure the evening remained untrammelled by interruptions.

He’d called Trip at the weekend and suggested an intimate, casual little restaurant just out of town. Nothing too fancy, nothing too high profile. For all that he was happy to use the drivers and security when it suited him, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood weighed heavily on Zack’s shoulders. Trip seemed to know the place and suggested he meet Zack there. Zack was slightly disappointed at the offhand attitude and the fact that they wouldn’t arrive together but figured once they’d both had something to drink, they could always leave together.

He’d taken far more time and care over his appearance than he would ordinarily have done for a pizza with a friend. Though clad only in jeans and a button down blue shirt, he’d tried on and rejected at least two thirds of his substantial shirt collection before returning to the first one he’d tried. He realised he was buzzing with nerves as he hopped around his apartment with one shoe half on, looking for its partner. He certainly didn’t feel hungry and he wondered how he was going to eat with this fizzy, hiccuppy feeling in his stomach.

‘Get a fucking GRIP!’ He told himself as he located the shoe and sat down on the couch to fasten it. There were definite advantages to living alone.

His phone buzzed on the side table to let him know that his car was awaiting him in the parking garage beneath the block. Studio security could apparently access pretty much anything, Zack reflected, even without the zapper doohicky needed to raise the shutter. He grabbed his wallet and keys, shot a glance out of the window and decided sunglasses might be an idea. OK so they’d be redundant later when it was dark but they at least offered a little anonymity between the car and the restaurant. Carefully locking his apartment door, he bounded down the stairs to the sub-basement. He flung open the plain, grey door and peered through the cavernous gloom. The SUV was waiting for him a little further down the ramp to his left. The engine was still running. He waved to the driver who made to pull closer but Zack leaped across and forced him to brake abruptly. Boots was about to get out of the passenger door when Zack simply opened the rear door and clambered in. 

‘Let’s go!’ he said breathily, aware that he was acting a little too enthusiastic.

They pulled out of the garage and into the warm California dusk. Zack settled himself back into the ridiculously armchair-like comfort of the seat and pre-thought his conversation for the evening. It was a habit. Like rehearsing real life. Usually conversations and situations in his life followed one of the paths he’d practiced. Tonight, he’d be straightforward and up front. He’d tell Trip how he felt and that he’d like to fix a proper date. Trip would protest, he had some kind of rule about not dating people he worked with, some kind of professional code of conduct. Zack would make it amply clear that he didn’t give a fuck about Trip’s stupid code of conduct and that he wanted to get closer. After a bit of heated discussion, Trip would crumble, as he had done over tonight’s arrangements, and Zack would get his own way. As usual.

Zack felt his stomach flip and clench as he vaguely sketched a few scenarios for the end of the evening. He shook his head to bring himself back to the present and idly watched Los Angeles slide past his window.

It really was pulling strings, he thought, this having the car and the security and all that. He could easily have driven himself. But then he couldn’t drink and he’d have to book a cab and there would be no cosy ride home in the backseat snuggled up... He caught himself again and smiled. Hell, why not? Snuggled up with Trip. Maybe holding hands. Maybe just thigh pressed against thigh, a hand on warm denim. He allowed his inner eye to see the curve of Trip’s chin, his jaw, his smooth cheek and the vision looked towards him, leaning in...

‘We’ll pull up out the front and I’ll come in, OK?’ Boots’ voice broke in.

‘Uh, yeah, sure’ Zack was momentarily confused.

‘Want me to wait by the bar or in the car? It looks pretty quiet tonight.’

‘Um, in the car, I guess. What should I do if, y’know, I get mobbed or something?’ 

Zack was half joking but remembered the claustrophobic press of fans a few times in the past.

‘Gimme your cell’ Boots commanded. He fiddled with the phone for a moment and then handed it back to Zack over his shoulder.

‘I’m speed dial on Q. Put the phone on the table and tell your friend before you order.’ Boots had done this before.

‘OK, thanks.’ Zack waited for Boots to open his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Why was he so nervous? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been out for a meal with the possibility of interruptions before. He could handle it, he’d be sweet and charming and sign napkins and explain Trip as ‘a friend’... cause how obvious could that be...? And so what, anyway? He hoped that by the end of the evening he’d have something for the fans and the press to really gossip about. His stomach flipped again as Boots opened the door and he entered the restaurant.

‘Er, I’m meeting someone’ he told the waiter who asked to seat him, scanning the room for Trip. There he was, right in the back corner, a table for two. Zack waved over at him, Trip raised a hand in acknowledgement.

‘Thanks’ he nodded to the waiter as he took the proffered menu and made his way through the tables to his seat.

‘Hey’ he greeted Trip, sitting down.

‘Hi. This table OK? I figured somewhere out of the way was a good idea.’  
Zack nodded, pouring himself a glass of ice water from the jug in the center of the table. Suddenly, everything felt awkward, the jug clashed against the glass, water splashed over the rim and Zack cursed silently.

‘I am so clumsy!’ he shook his head as he mopped up the spill with a napkin.

‘So, this feels a bit weird...’ he began, ‘You look great.’ He took a slow gulp from the glass as he looked at Trip. He looked awesome. A crisp black shirt with dark grey tie knotted semi-casually below the unbuttoned neck. Clean-shaven, that smooth jawline, bright eyes framed by dark lashes... Zack’s heart pounded as he lowered his eyes. 

‘Thanks, you too. Feels good to wear your own clothes, doesn’t it?’ Trip laughed.

‘Yeah!’ Zack placed the glass carefully down. ‘Even when I go out, I’m usually wearing something someone else has told me to wear. I occasionally forget how to dress myself!’ he quipped.

‘So, we gonna eat pizza?’ Trip seemed a little too business-like for Zack’s liking but he picked up the menu.

As they discussed the gourmet toppings and chose salads, the conversation began to flow a bit more freely. Zack felt heartened by Trip not ordering garlic bread but disappointed that he didn’t want to try a slice of Zack’s pizza or to order a beer.

As they tackled tall ice cream sundaes in the restaurant’s trademark fluted glasses, Zack decided the moment had come to make his move.

‘Um, Trip, can I ask you something?’

Trip dug into the bottom of his glass with the long spoon. ‘Uh-huh?’

‘Are you seeing anyone, y’know like... seeing... y’know...’ Fuck. Way to blow it, Zack.

He took a breath and made to try again.

Trip put down his spoon.

‘No, I’m not, Zack. And if this conversation’s heading the way I think it might be heading, can I just get in first with a couple of observations?’

Zack sat back, rather shocked.

Trip continued. His eyes focussed on the glass, carefully avoiding Zack.

‘If I’ve learned anything from working in this crazy-ass business for as long as I have, it’s that you have to pick your friends very carefully. You have to think really hard about who you let in and who you are seen with. You have to learn not to say the things you want to say cause it’s gonna come back to bite you, guaranteed.’

‘I, oh, right.’ Zack felt as if he was gaping like a goldfish. Like he’d been punched in the stomach.

Trip looked at him

‘You were gonna ask me out, right?’

‘Yes. I-I thought...’

‘I’m sorry Zack. I can’t. I like you but it wouldn’t be right. It’s kinda like you’re outta my league and a guy in your situation shouldn’t be seen with his stunt double. You need someone high-profile, photogenic, someone who’s used to the limelight. Someone you can be photographed with and do ‘It Gets Better’ videos with and go to swanky functions in tuxedos. I can’t do it, Zack. I’m sorry but I just can’t. It’s not a good idea. I-I can’t...’ He pushed back his chair and dumped the napkin on the table. Reaching swiftly into his back pocket, he pulled out his wallet, opened it and flicked a fifty onto the table in one deft move before rising to his feet with a broken-voiced ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

Zack watched, stunned as Trip turned his back and left.

***


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Homophobic language, transphobic violence & rape.

Shit, fuck, shit, FUCK! That wasn’t how Trip had planned it. Not at all. 

His eyes had blurred with tears as he strode out of the restaurant and down the street. FUCK! He felt his chest heave with sobs beneath the constriction of the compression top he wore under his shirt. He pulled uselessly at his already-loose tie, trying to catch a breath. STOP FUCKING CRYING! He dashed his eyes with his fists, almost punching the tears from them. FUCKING STOP!

He reached his van, parked in a side road, fumbled with the key and hauled himself up into the cab. He folded his arms onto the steering wheel, dropped his head and sobbed. Great gasping, heaving, agonising breaths of anguish wracked his body and his mind went utterly blank.

It was a good ten minutes before Trip was able to regain any kind of control over his body. His mind seemed to slowly surface as the sobs receded. Stray thoughts at first and then the appalling reality of how he’d just behaved to Zack. It wasn’t the speech he’d practised. That had been mature and reasoned, explaining how Trip’s experience had given him a realistic view of Hollywood and the way it chewed up and spat out people like Zack on a daily basis for much, much less than dating their stunt double. There had been a section about how young Zack was and about how he shouldn’t have to learn about relationships in the glare of the spotlight and he should have someone younger, more beautiful, more perfect...

There were tactical omissions, too. Like how ripped-apart Zack would be by the press when they discovered that he, a gay man, was dating a female-bodied person. Like how ripped-apart Zack would feel when he discovered Trip wasn’t conventionally male. Like how much Trip had just wanted to tell him the truth and to reach across that table and touch his cheek, to get up and walk round to Zack and smash their lips together in a breathless kiss...

The sobs threatened to rise again but Trip was in control now. With practised ferociousness, he crushed his feelings down, the hurt, the pain, the anguish and the passion. He slotted the key into the ignition and, focussing only on the familiarity of driving, he headed home.

Several times during the journey, he felt his cellphone vibrating in his back pocket. Part of him was desperate to pull over, take it out and answer the call. He knew exactly how the conversation would go. Then, later, as Zack started to text him, he longed to read the messages, to call him, to explain. Another part of him knew he would delete them without reading.

It wasn’t all that late when Trip pulled the camper into a parking space not far from his apartment building. He didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to spend the evening turning over and over in his head the ghastly scenario in the restaurant. He didn’t want his instinctive empathy to make him go through all that he knew Zack was feeling right now. That incomprehension at being so summarily rejected where he thought he’d read the signals so well. And he had, Trip had let out too much, he had allowed himself to lead Zack on, Trip had wanted him to know the feeling was mutual. For a brief moment he’d let himself dream that things could just be normal, that a guy like Zack would accept him, love him, even, despite... everything.

Trip sighed, gathering himself in yet again, trying to push it all down, make it all not matter. Preparing the ground for another layer of emotional concrete to block anything from bubbling to the surface. 

He looked at his watch. Ten thirty, there was still plenty of time to go out and drink the evening out of his consciousness. The night was hardly starting in the clubs and bars at this time. In the minute it took him to climb down from the cab, his decision was made. He straightened his shirt, tucking it back into his black jeans, and strode purposefully up the street to the intersection where the bus stop was.

Twenty minutes later, after a ride highlighted by a malodorous woman’s diatribe against everything the modern world had to offer, including, variously, rock music, nipple rings, double glazing and ‘nancy boys’, Trip hopped off the bus on a strip full of brightly-lit club signs.

He headed instinctively towards a familiar facade. Not the night to try something new. He needed to be where people either knew him or didn’t much care. He smiled at the doorkeeper. She was a woman tonight. Sometimes she was a man. Often it was hard to tell. It didn’t much matter, thought Trip, paying his entry and descending into the sweaty basement.

The music was pounding so loudly both thought and speech were impossible. It was just what Trip needed. He mouthed silently along with the song as he made his way over to the bar. The club was already crowded with people, a colorful crowd by the looks of it, thought Trip, appreciative of the distractions. As he pushed his way through clots of people, a couple of them greeted him with smiles; one wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him full on his lips. He played along, smooching her and grasping her sequin-clad ass. As she released him, he pretended to fan his face and pointed to the bar, almost shouting ‘I’m getting a drink, you want one, Sil?’

The figure shook her platinum curls and dabbed Trip on the nose as he turned away. Everybody loved Silver, she could probably snog the Queen and get away with it. Unless the Queen found out what Silver kept neatly tucked away between her fishnetted thighs...

As he sipped his beer, Trip felt the earlier part of the evening slipping from his shoulders and his mind. He couldn’t forgive himself, wasn’t ready to apologise or explain but for a short while he could just forget. Just stuff it away in that dark and secret place where he stored everything he liked to tell himself he had processed, had dealt with but actually had just hidden. He figured he had a few years before it began to burst forth as full-blown psychosis, when the psychological hidey-hole got too full. Till then, whilst he could still hide, he did. 

And he drank. It helped immensely.

By the third beer, Trip was ready to dance and he abandoned himself thoroughly on the dance floor, not caring what people thought. Fact was, most of the other people there were in the same boat. They were an amorphous cloud of grinding bodies, detached from their minds courtesy of a varied mix of substances. Trip closed his eyes and slid his ass up and down against.. he turned to check... a guy in pvc pants and a lace halter. 

The boy looked out at him from beneath gelled dark bangs, his eyes heavily made up with black kohl and carefully positioned sequins and glitter. Trip caught his breath, he was a complete sucker for this look. The boy dropped his lids again and Trip grabbed his shiny, slippery hips. They writhed together, the boy holding his arms above his head, his hips perfectly in sync with Trip’s. This, now this Trip could handle. The anonymous physicality of the club, a beautiful stranger in his arms Even... he pulled the boy close to him and kissed him deeply, luxuriating in the response, feeling the warmth, the breath, the insistent tongue probing his own. He felt the boy murmur against his lips, a moan of pure unadulterated desire. The slender body pressed closer, up against his own and he ran his fingers up the lace-covered back, over the naked flesh and began threading them through the wispy hair, tightening his grip and intensifying the kiss. Trip felt his stomach twist with need, a warmth pulsing between his thighs. He wanted so much to possess this gorgeous creature, to satisfy both their desires with a raw, unbridled passion that he knew lay within him but he’d never allowed free rein. 

Trip broke the contact, pulling back with a half lidded gaze, licking his lips, his breathing ragged. He slid his mouth close to the boy’s ear and asked if he wanted a drink. The boy turned his face towards Trip and mouthed ‘A drink and then you’ pushing Trip’s shoulder with a single finger.

Oh Jesus but he wanted to fuck that one till he came screaming...

***

Trip had brought the boy his beer and he had mimed that he was going outside to have a cigarette. Trip motioned for him to go and returned to the dance floor. It was an easy brush-off and one he’d used before. Plenty of people used the little smokers’ courtyard as a place to further their relationships, at least getting the measure of their prospective conquests if not actually taking things all the way. By the time the boy had finished his cigarette and drunk his beer he would have met up with another admirer and be too full of the prospects ahead of him to even remember his encounter with Trip.

Trip downed most of the bottle and returned to the dance floor. The heavy beat and the alcohol in his veins numbed the last remnants of his pain, erased the sharp edge of desire and replaced them all with a thick, dizzying lack of sensation.

Trip danced and drank until he knew he was on the verge of oblivion. His steely instinct to retain basic control always kicked in before he really lost it and at about 3am he kissed goodbye to the small group of complete strangers with whom he’d been dancing and made his way back up the stairs and out into the warm night air. The night buses were very few and far between but it wasn’t such a trial to wait for them on a balmy night like this. They ran along a different route from the one he’d taken earlier and Trip began to walk, a little unsteadily, towards the less well-lit end of the street. 

Small knots of people were also passing along the sidewalks, many screeching drunkenly and occasionally stumbling into the road. It was a wonder more of them didn’t get hit by passing vehicles, Trip mused as he walked. 

He became vaguely aware that a group was walking behind him, approaching quite quickly. He automatically shoved his hands deep in his jeans pockets, hunching his shoulders up. They’d pass him by in a moment, ignoring a guy walking along minding his own business.

Only, that wasn’t their plan.

As they came closer, Trip heard a murmured comment which ended in the phrase 

‘...fuckin’ QUEER.’

His heart sank. Not this, not tonight. He quickened his pace but the group easily caught up with him. One of their number sidestepped into his path, stopping him.

‘You a fucking QUEER? Huh, gay boy? You like it up the ass?’ He accompanied his challenges with lewd thrusts of his pelvis. His three friends laughed and took up the refrain.

‘Fuckin’ ass bandit...’

‘Shit stabber... pervert...huh, gay boy? You wanna fuck me in the ass? Huh? You like a piece of this?’ A denimed behind was waggled in front of him.

Trip sighed and faced them.

‘No thanks, I don’t want a piece of your skinny ass. But thanks for offering, now can I go? Have you had your fun?’

It was like he’d lit a fuse. Suddenly a fist hit him in the face and then a foot to the stomach. Trip was taken so completely by surprise that he doubled over. He didn’t even manage to get in a punch at any of his attackers before he felt himself being dragged off the main road and into an alley or a side street. He didn’t know which, but they kept on with the hitting and kicking. Pain began to bloom all over his body and he felt himself greying out. He tasted blood and heard snatches of abuse spat with venom as each blow hit home.

Suddenly he was aware of a hand grabbing his crotch and he tried to cry out in panic and alarm

‘No, please, no...!’

But it was too late.

‘Hey, this ain’t no fucking guy, he’s got no fucking dick!’

Trip felt the buckle of his belt being wrenched open and rough hands dragging his jeans and underwear down. His head connected with the concrete as his feet were pulled out from under him. Again he desperately tried to cry out but managed only a strangled moan as his legs were pinned apart and the first attacker began forcing his way in.

Blackness swam across his vision and Trip felt the pain, the humiliation and the world slip away.

***


	13. Chapter 13

Zack hadn’t slept much. Every time he tried to close his eyes, his mind raced with thoughts about the scene in the restaurant. He swung from anger to hurt to incomprehension to something approaching rational understanding of Trip’s outburst. It just hadn’t seemed like the same person that Zack had got to know over the past few weeks. Trip had been a bit detached during the evening but Zack had put that down to both of their nerves, they’d loosened up a bit as they talked. But that speech over the ice cream, that thorough rejection for what seemed like stupid reasons, and Trip’s voice cracking like he was about to cry as he apologised and left.

He just didn’t get it. Besides, who did Trip think he was, dictating who Zack should be dating? He might be younger but he was perfectly capable of making his own decision on that one. He did what he wanted and the press and the fans and Hollywood and the rest of the fucking world could just go get screwed.

He flipped to the other side of the bed and reached in the darkness for his phone. As it powered up, he checked for new messages, missed calls... a handful of each but nothing from Trip.

Zack typed up another text: ‘call me when you get this, please, I need to talk’ and fired it off to Trip’s number. He lay the phone back down on the nightstand and collapsed onto the pillows.

In his mind’s eye he could still see Trip’s face across the dinner table. The hair, styled like his own, the delicate features, crystalline blue eyes ringed with long, dark lashes, the snub nose that he wanted to tweak and the full lips... Zack had planned for those lips. He could imagine exactly how they would feel pressed against his own. Softly at first, but then with more pressure, more passion, breath, tongue, a moan...

He coiled up with frustration and hurt. He wanted Trip so badly. Where had he gone wrong? Why did an evening with so much promise turn out so awful? Who the hell in their right mind would reject him??? A tightness in his chest and throat caught him off guard and he gulped. Somehow though, the tears wouldn’t come, there was too much anger underlying the hurt, too much that he just didn’t understand. And there was a determination not to give up. This one was worth fighting for. This one felt like nothing ever before, no-one had ever made Zack feel this way, and so quickly, no-one had ever got him so obsessed, made him laugh so much or made him want to surrender so fully to his desires, to lose control...

The phone on the nightstand vibrated.

Zack snatched it up, eagerly looking at the screen before connecting the call. Shit, it was only Marco. What the fuck did he want at 5am? Zack picked up.

‘Marco?’

‘Zack? Um, Zack, I’m at Mercy Hospital. It’s Trip, he’s been attacked... he’s in pretty bad shape, I-I think you might wanna come down...’  
Zack sat up instantly, his heart in his throat, his whole body tense

‘What?? Is he OK? What happened? Oh my God...’

‘Just get down here, Zack.’

‘I’m on my way, right now’

‘Zack? Drive safe, y’hear’

‘’K, bye’ 

He ended the call and flung the phone down, leaping off the bed and flicking on the overhead light. He grabbed whichever clothes he’d discarded the previous evening and threw them on, tearing out of the apartment, stopping only to snatch up his phone and keys.

Running down the stairs to the parking garage, Zack’s mind began to re-engage. What had happened after Trip left the restaurant? Where did he go? Who had attacked him? How badly hurt was he? Oh God, what if... no, that wasn’t gonna do anyone any good... 

He tried to slow his frantic breathing as he pulled the car up the ramp and into the half-light of dawn. The street lights were still on and Zack switched on his headlights, navigating carefully through the still-empty city. The hospital was closer to the studio than the restaurant. 

Zack wondered again why Trip had been taken there, had he gone somewhere else after leaving? What had happened? How long after Zack had got home was Trip attacked? Why hadn’t he just answered his phone?

As he pulled into the hospital parking lot, Zack was seized by a wave of panic that left him shaking. What if this was his fault? What was he about to find inside? What had they done to that beautiful, brave man...?

Zack pushed open the door to the main reception area, not even thinking that he should go to the Emergency entrance, and blinked in the searing fluorescent light. Marco spotted him entering and began to come over, Zack saw Bev behind him.

Questions burst from Zack in a torrent, Bev held his arm as Marco stood in front of him and let him finish. He gestured for Zack to come and sit down on one of the chairs in the deserted waiting area. 

‘OK, Zack, try to calm down, I need you to listen.’ Marco’s voice was low and steady, Zack found himself responding and his breathing slowed.

‘Just... how is he?’ Zack whispered.

‘We don’t know for sure at the moment. He’s unconscious. He was attacked by a bunch of guys on the way back from a club early this morning. They messed him up pretty bad. He has a few broken ribs, fractured wrist, some internal bleeding and a bad head injury. They just have to wait and see how that one turns out. He’s got a lot of bruises, facial contusions... and uhhh..’ Marco trailed off, looking in desperation at Bev.

‘Zack... did Trip say anything to you last night?’ Bev began.

‘Yeah, quite a lot. He left. Oh God, if this is because of something I said...’ Zack dropped his face to his hands.

‘No, no, it’s not’ Bev took his hands down from his face and held them between her own.

‘Zack, did he tell you about himself?’ she gently asked.

‘Tell me what?’

Bev looked anxiously up at Marco, standing over them both. He crouched down level with Zack.

‘You need to know something Zack, it’s not really my place to tell you and I wouldn’t, but you need to know.’ Marco took a deep breath as Zack looked up at him.

‘Zack, Trip is a transman, he’s physically female... and these guys, they uh, they raped him. Four of them...’

There was silence as Zack sat frozen, staring blankly at Marco.

‘Oh God. Oh God.... Oh my God...’ Zack raised his hand to his mouth, his whole body shaking again. The words had just evaporated from his brain. The information he’d just received was such a shock, too huge to comprehend, too much.

He felt Bev put her hand on his shoulder as Marco stood back up again. 

Zack swallowed. 

Slowly, understanding of what he’d just heard began to filter into his mind. The horrific reality of what had happened to Trip utterly eclipsed the truth that Marco had just revealed. 

There was a long pause and then Zack asked, his voice barely audible,

‘Can I see him?’

‘I’ll go find out.’ Marco headed over to the desk on the other side of the lobby.

Bev wrapped her arms around Zack as he began to crumble, the pent-up tears from earlier and the fresh ones from now suddenly pouring down his cheeks as his body released all the night’s emotions. Words tumbled from him as he wept on Bev’s shoulder.

‘It wasn’t my fault, I wanted to be with him and he didn’t... and he left, and now this and... oh God, Trip. Bev, I want him to be O-O K...’

Bev tightened her hold, rocking him gently

‘OK, Zack, it’s OK, it’s not your fault, it’s awful but it happens, Trip’s strong, he’ll get through this, c’mon baby, it’s OK...’ She kept up the soothing words as she stroked his back and held him until he was able to calm his hitching breath and pull away from her arms. He wiped his eyes with his palms, like a child, and straightened up. He looked into Bev’s face and murmured softly

‘It doesn’t change anything, y’know.’

Bev clasped his hand tightly and pressed her lips together, holding back the rush of feelings threatening to engulf her.


	14. Chapter 14

Marco came over to Zack and Bev,

‘They said we can go in for a few minutes. They’ve moved him to an observation room and he’s under guard at the moment.’

Marco noticed Zack’s eyes widen

‘It’s pretty standard procedure in cases like these. They’re treating it as a hate crime. Also, if he wakes up they need any information he can give as soon as possible’

‘So no-one knows who did it?’ Zack asked

‘No. He was found by someone passing, probably a couple hours later. But they have DNA...’

Zack winced as the realisation of how that evidence had been gathered struck him.

‘Poor Trip, it must have been awful. God, I can’t imagine...’

‘They think maybe he was unconscious already, there’s no suggestion that he put up a fight. And Trip would have put up a fight...’ Marco grimaced wryly.

‘Four guys? How could anyone fight four guys?’ Zack shook his head. 

A blonde nurse approached them and smiled. 

‘You want to go in and see Trey? I can only let you in for a couple of minutes... sh... he needs peace and quiet right now.’ She covered her inadvertent and understandable slip in pronoun well. 

‘Trey? Jeez, I didn’t even know his real name!’ muttered Zack, almost to himself as they set off along the corridors.

The nurse stopped by a curtained cubical, a uniformed police officer sat close by. Several similar areas with the curtains pulled back lined a short corridor facing a nurses’ station where a couple of other staff sat working. It was obvious that whoever got to sit there spent their time listening for changes in the various beeping instruments lining the opposite wall. Only one regular beep sounded from within the drawn curtains.

Once again, Zack felt apprehension rise in his chest.

‘He’s pretty beaten up’ the nurse was saying ‘He has contusions on his face and neck and... pretty much everywhere. But he’s breathing on his own, which is good and he didn’t lose too much blood. Which is also good. You wanna come in?’ She gestured to Zack and he stepped forward, through the gap in the curtain that the nurse was holding back for him.

The figure in the bed didn’t look like Trip. It didn’t look like anyone. It hardly looked human. 

The left eye was swollen and shiny and red. Red and blue cuts and bruises covered the face, the lip was split in a black clot. There was a bandage covering the back of the head, where it rested on the pillows and an ominously purple hand-shaped shadow bloomed on the neck. The bare shoulders seemed untouched but the firm, defined biceps each had darkening bruises around them. The left arm was in a cast from below the elbow and a cannula sprouted from the back of each hand.

Zack just looked. He couldn’t help but turn over in his mind what he now knew about the... man lying on the bed before him. What lay beneath those thin covers. A very slight rise at the chest was the only clue and that was barely discernable. And elsewhere... Zack could only think of what had happened earlier that morning. Four men. Four men reminding Trip of something he probably was all too aware of and probably wanted to forget. 

Something seemed to click into place inside Zack and he found himself more certain than he had been before.

This man was definitely worth fighting for.

He walked across to the bed, pausing to examine Trip’s ravaged face. Leaning down, he placed a soft kiss on a clear patch of forehead and whispered

‘I’m not giving up on you, Trip’

He turned away, pushing back the curtain to let Marco and Bev go in.

He found the blonde nurse filling in papers at the desk. Glancing at her name badge, he asked

‘Paula, might it be possible for me to come visit him early and late each day? I have a pretty busy work schedule but I want to come see him.’

Nurse Paula looked at him and formed an instant picture in her mind of their relationship. Her features softened.

‘Of course. What times can you manage, hon?’

They agreed on before 6am and after 9pm for the coming week. Zack was pretty certain the studio only needed him for day shoots. Paula said she was on the morning shift and Nurse Jackson would be there in the evenings, she’d let him know. Then...

‘Aren’t you...’ she smiled shyly

Zack nodded ‘Yes, I am. Autograph?’

She blushed ‘Just for my kids, y’know, they think you’re the best thing since Harry Potter.’

Zack grinned

‘High praise indeed! So who’m I making this out to?’

He signed two sheets of notepaper for Paula’s children and then added one more especially for her. She beamed.

‘Thanks, Zack, I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early. Oh and...’ she paused ‘I think he’s gonna be fine, y’know. I really do. Just give it some time.’

Zack looked up at her hopefully.

‘Yeah? Thanks, Paula. Take care of him, huh?’

‘Sure.’

Zack walked over to where Bev and Marco were standing, holding each other close. 

‘I’d better get off to work. Thanks for calling me, Marco. And thanks for being there for him. I’ll catch you later, call me if there’s any news. Anything at all.’

Marco nodded and socked his arm gently, Bev kissed her hand and touched it to Zack’s cheek.

He smiled in understanding and headed back towards his car.


	15. Chapter 15

Zack spent the day entirely focussed on his work. The character he was playing was serious and thoughtful, an intelligent business man with action-packed extra-curricular activities. Much of the action and location work had been filmed, leaving the greater part of the studio work to do. It was hard work but Zack relished the sheer concentration it took him to completely inhabit the character. At eight that evening, as the final scene for the day wrapped, he felt like he had awoken into himself again. 

It was an awakening that left him exhausted.

Instead of staying to chat about the day with the rest of the cast and crew, he left abruptly and returned to his car. As he approached the parking lot, he heard a shout behind him.

‘Hey, Zack! Wait up!’ Sam the director was running after him.

‘I heard about Trip, you know how he’s doing?’

‘Yeah, I went to see him this morning. Not good. He’s unconscious still. They just have to wait, I guess.’

Sam shook his head ‘Fucking awful. How could someone do that?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You gonna see him?’ Sam raised an eyebrow in enquiry.

‘Yes, I’m going now.’

‘Well, let me know how he’s doing, huh? He’s part of the team, I’ve known him a while.’

Sam placed a hand on Zack’s shoulder, almost reassuringly,

‘He’s a tough guy, Zack. He’ll be OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Sam swung round and returned towards the sound stage, leaving Zack puzzling. 

Exactly how obvious had he been about his feelings...?

***

He was still turning thoughts over in his head as he drove towards the hospital. It was the first opportunity he’d had to really consider at length the events of the last twenty-four hours. As he sat at the lights, he realised the probable reason for Trip’s reluctance to get involved. Everything suddenly made sense. It was less to do with the whole ‘don’t date your stuntman if you’re a big Hollywood name’ and more to do with ‘If you’re a gay celebrity, don’t date someone the press will figure out is a woman’. Zack snorted with ironic laughter and he pulled away into the traffic. He’d didn’t think he’d ever met anyone whom he considered as wholly masculine as Trip. The guy was fit, built and muscled in a subtle but seriously distracting way. He did the kind of job that most men would baulk at. Jeez, he even refused to commit or give a straight answer when confronted with the possibility of a situation which might leave him vulnerable! Zack’s heart constricted a little at this. His response to the memory of the rejection was even more intense now than it had been last night. It hurt. It really hurt. As he increased his speed on the open stretch of road, Zack tentatively began to consider all the implications of his newly-acquired knowledge. He played devil’s advocate, forcing himself to rethink all the natural assumptions upon which his attraction had been based. Trip had a female anatomy. He had breasts and a cunt. Bound and downplayed, Zack guessed, but there nonetheless. He examined his own reaction and was surprised at the ambivalence he felt. He tried again to provoke himself and imagined touching Trip’s body, his... femaleness... Again, a slight sensation of unreality. Not ever really having experienced it, he couldn’t rule it out as abhorrent, by any stretch. His thoughts meandered back to the absolutes: Trip had obvious facial hair, a slim but recognisably masculine physique, his voice was lower than Zack’s own. Zack guessed at regular testosterone treatments and suppressed a slight thrill as he remembered Trip’s forearms, firm, muscled and veined to the backs of his hands... Those were not female arms. Zack shook his head. He was a guy... Why would Zack feel so strongly, be so attracted to him if he wasn’t? 

This testing process was utterly counter-productive. 

He’d been trying to put himself off. Trying to see Trip as a woman and thus short-circuit his feelings but it didn’t work. As far as Zack was concerned, right now, Trip was as much a man as he himself was. A warmth crept into the pit of his stomach and curled up there like a cat, purring softly. Yes, Zack thought. That felt so right. 

The tricky stuff he’d deal with as and when (and if) it arose.

He navigated into the smaller streets that led to the hospital parking lot and began to worry. It was all very well to sort out his own feelings but Trip was still lying in there unconscious. What if he had some kind of brain damage? What if he could no longer work? What if he didn’t wake up? The nervous shaking that had wracked him the previous morning threatened to overwhelm him again but he reigned himself in. No, Trip was going to be OK and he was going to be there for Trip when he awoke, he wasn’t going to confirm any of Trip’s fears about how the world would react or about how he himself would react. He was going to be the one to prove to Trip that he was worth being loved. 

Woah. Where had that come from?

 

He pushed open the doors to the hospital lobby. Heading over to the main desk, he realised that regular visiting hours had probably been over a while ago so he tentatively began to explain his agreement with Nurse Paula to the woman at the desk. She tucked a strand of iron-grey hair behind her ear and checked a list on the monitor in front of her. 

‘Do you have some identification?’

Zack pulled his wallet from his back pocket and showed his driver’s license. The woman critically compared the photo with his face. Zack felt kind of glad they were being vigilant, all things considered.

‘OK, that’s fine. You know the way?’

Zack realised that he had very little recollection of how to get back to the corridor Trip’s bed was on. He’d been too tired and shocked that morning to remember much except broad, intense flashes. He shook his head.

‘Not really,

The woman gave brief, simple instructions, navigating him by a door color here, a department sign there until Zack felt he knew more or less where he was going. He thanked her and set off, hearing her lift the receiver of an internal phone to let someone know of his impending arrival.

In fact, he found the ward with greater ease than he expected. He recognised certain corners that had he’d noticed that morning, noticeboards filled with bright posters and signs.

Up ahead, he saw the desk and opposite, Trip’s curtained cubical. A different police officer sat in the nearby chair. A thickset man with a jovial brown face greeted him as he approached. 

‘Hi, Zack, I’m Jackson. Paula told me to expect you.’

‘Hi, Jackson. Thanks for letting me come out of hours. How is he?’

‘No significant change. It’s just a case of waiting, I’m afraid. He’s stable and breathing on his own but the coma condition hasn’t changed.’

Wait. What? Coma?

‘Coma? I thought he was unconscious? Like knocked out?’ Zack asked, his brow furrowed.

‘Yes, but that’s often very temporary and the person can be roused. Trey’s had a bad knock to the head which probably rendered him unconscious but there may be something else keeping him in a comatose state. It might be the head injury, could be shock, it can happen that severe emotional trauma can trigger it simply to stop the brain having to deal with something that’s too much to handle at the time. That’s why it’s a bit of a waiting game, Zack.’

‘Oh. So it’s not necessarily indicative of brain injury or anything?’ Zack asked tentatively.

‘No. His scans didn’t show up anything significant, no bleeding, no real swelling. Just a pretty bad bump.’

Zack let out a breath.

‘That’s good, right?’

‘It’s certainly not all bad. I know you probably want answers but I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple. He’s stable, and we’ve patched up all we can. After that we just watch and wait. You wanna go in?’

‘Yes, thanks...’ Zack drew back the curtain, then paused, looking back at Jackson.

‘Is it right that he can hear me like this?’

Jackson smiled ‘Often people who come out of coma do say they heard conversations or music that was played to them, yes.’

‘Thanks’

It was just what Zack needed to hear.

***


	16. Chapter 16

Zack almost tiptoed up to Trip’s bed. He had a strange feeling of not wanting to wake him, as though he was asleep. The second he got close enough to see how much the morning’s bruises had darkened, though, he knew Trip wasn’t peacefully sleeping. 

The injuries seemed to have worsened. The hand print on Trip’s neck somehow seemed the most shocking. Someone had grasped Trip so hard by the throat to hold him still or press him back that they must have virtually crushed his windpipe. Zack’s hand fluttered involuntarily to his own throat as he imagined how painful that must have been. 

Trip had been dressed in a cotton hospital nightgown so the bruises on his biceps were no longer visible but Zack remembered them from that morning and a grotesque vision hit him of a pair of hands gripping each arm savagely tight whilst a third and fourth man... He stopped his too-vivid imagination right there. His throat constricted and his brows drew down in pain. It didn’t do anyone any good to imagine that. 

But he could almost feel it. He hurt for what Trip had endured. He wanted to take it away, to make it all better. He felt utterly powerless. What could he do?

Zack sat down next to the bed and hesitantly took Trip’s right hand in his own. He was worried about taking liberties. Just cause the guy was unconscious... comatose.... didn’t mean he had the right to touch him or anything. He thought back to the kiss he’d placed on Trip’s forehead and hoped it was excusable. He allowed his hand to simply rest beneath Trip’s as he began to talk. Hardly even whispering at first, he started to open his heart in faltering phrases.

‘Hey, Trip. I’m so sorry this awful thing has happened to you. I’m so sorry that you left last night and that I made you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t know why. I just didn’t. You can’t blame me for that. You didn’t let me in. I understand why now, I do, but how could I have known?’

He took a breath. This wasn’t going well. But maybe Trip couldn’t hear him. Maybe this wasn’t for him anyway, maybe he just needed to talk to himself aloud for a while.

‘I was fascinated by you when I first saw you. I looked at your arms and thought how strong they looked. I totally checked out your ass when I walked behind you. That first time and every time after that. I watched you move, watched how you use your body, like you are in control of everything. Nothing you do is accidental, you fall and you know exactly where each bit of you is going to land. That’s incredible to me. And a turn on. I remember when you were having your hair done and I just sat and watched. I could almost feel those tiny hairs on your neck...’

Zack broke off at the realisation that those tiny hairs were inches away from him. Yet somehow he couldn’t reach out and touch them. It would be something of a violation. No. Not that. More like trespassing. He needed permission.

‘You make me laugh so hard, Trip. You just seem so comfortable in yourself and with me. So confident. Your inner strength is so reassuring somehow. You never seem to be unsure of anything. You know exactly what to do. I’d have believed you when you told me that we couldn’t see each other. You do know about these things and now I understand why you said it but... I can’t stop myself feeling like this, Trip. You make me feel the most... When I’m with you I... I...’

He trailed off, suddenly self-conscious, not quite ready to tell himself the next bit of the conversation. But he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. 

He looked at the battered face resting on the pillows. There was a certain femininity about it, now he was looking for it. The smooth jawline he’d admired so much, softer and more rounded than it could have been, shaded now with just a little stubble. Those full lips that he had imagined pressing against his own, split and swollen but still with the promise of sensuality. That little nose... Zack became aware that he’d never looked at anyone this closely, this intimately before. He was able to examine without fear of making Trip uncomfortable, without making himself feel self-conscious. He continued to look, committing every miraculous plane of Trip’s face to memory. And the more he looked, the more beauty he discovered, the more he realised that masculine and feminine had very little to do with it. It was all about aesthetics and knowing the person behind that face and hearing his voice and his laugh and watching him move...

‘I wanna talk with you, Trip. I want to hear your story. From you. I want to know what’s really underneath that incredibly convincing facade. I want you to know that you can trust me. I don’t want you to ever think you have to hide stuff from me again.’

Once more, Zack’s voice faltered. He felt like he was jumping ahead. This kind of admission was for further down the line, surely? It was so intimate. Half of him hoped he was talking to himself. Half of him wished desperately that Trip had heard. He’d spoken without thinking too much. He wasn’t sure he could do that if Trip was awake fixing him with those blue eyes...

Zack looked at his watch. It was past ten. He needed sleep and he still had to work the following day. Carefully pulling his hand out from under Trip’s he stroked his finger over the skin at the base of Trip’s thumb. The back of his hand was criss-crossed with adhesive tape holding the drip feed tube secure. Zack wondered what they were putting into him. Saline? Medication? He didn’t know but something within told him that Trip’s unconsciousness was a form of safeguard. He would hate being restricted, held still and so out of control.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Sleep tight.’ 

Feeling somewhat emotionally vulnerable, Zack decided against another kiss. Maybe he should try and keep things on a no-touch basis until Trip woke up and actually gave his assent. Or otherwise.

As he left the curtained room, he turned to the police officer seated in the corridor.

‘Excuse me, can I ask what you guys can do to find the people who did this? What you can do by sitting here?’ 

Zack suddenly realised how that sounded and made to correct himself.

‘Sorry. I-I mean...’

The officer interrupted

‘No, I understand. It’s standard if the assault is deemed to be a hate crime to have an officer with the victim to guard them in case of reprisals and to get the details and evidence when the victim’s ready to talk. The sooner after the assault that we can get the information the better.’

Zack nodded. 

‘So when he wakes up, you’ll be asking him straight away what he remembers?’

‘If he’s ready to talk, yes.’

‘And if he’s not?’

‘We wait.’

‘OK, thanks.’

‘You’re welcome, sir.’

Zack said goodbye to Jackson and walked back through to the hospital lobby and out into the night. A light rain had begun to fall, cooling the warm summer air and raising the scent of road dust and soil from the decorative planted beds in the parking lot. Zack wearily located his car, climbed in and headed for home with a heavy heart and an aching sense of unfulfilment.

***


	17. Chapter 17

Three days passed. A weekend occurred which Zack agreed to work through in order to fill his time. He fell into something of a routine. He would get up early so he could visit the hospital before heading to the studio. Then, after he’d finished work for the day he would spend an hour or so by Trip’s bedside before returning home. Sometimes he felt like talking, other times he would just sit and think. He didn’t very often allow himself the opportunity to sit and do nothing but think. His life seemed altogether too rushed for that. Just for the moment though, he’d decided to simplify his commitments. He wasn’t going out, he was cooking for himself, he was working hard and he was spending time with Trip. Albeit increasingly unsatisfactory and despairing time. 

But he didn’t want to stop.

The Monday after Trip had been attacked, Zack was on set, not actually involved in the take, but busying himself with watching the process and learning from his fellow cast members when he felt his cellphone vibrate in his jeans pocket. He was startled, as on a regular day, his phone would be off and in his locker or back at his trailer. There was no excuse for a take being ruined by some actor’s ringtone sounding from their costume pocket. It felt odd to be connected to the world from within the studio. Zack rose from his chair and quietly padded to the back of the hangar before checking to see who had called. Marco’s name hovered on the screen. Zack immediately exited the building and half-ran to his trailer, speed dialling Marco’s number as he went.

‘Hi, Marco? It’s Zack.’

‘Zack, I wasn’t sure if you were shooting but thought I’d call. He’s awake.’

‘That’s great! How is he?’ Zack hoped fervently that it was great.

‘He’s hurting and he has a lot to process but he seems to be OK.’

Zack let out an audible sigh of relief.

‘Shall I come over?’

Marco seemed to hesitate for a moment.

‘Well, the cops wanna talk to him first if he’s up to it and the doctor says he’ll need a rest after that. He’s in a lot of pain, physically and emotionally. Can you hold off till this evening? Maybe six, seven?’

Zack was impatient but Marco made a lot of sense. There was no point in putting Trip through too much. The guy had only just woken up and found out he’d been violently sexually assaulted and that he’d missed nearly four days of his life. Zack’s wants and needs could wait.

‘Yeh, sure. You think that’ll be OK, Marco? Think he’ll be up to it?’  
‘Let’s see, Zack. He’s literally only been awake forty-five minutes or so. The doctors are checking him out. Bev and I were here so we got to say hi. But they’ve kicked us out now. I’ll call you a bit later, OK?’

‘OK... Marco...?’

‘Yeh?’

‘Uh, thanks, y’know for calling me.’

‘No problem. Bye’

Zack clicked the disconnect button. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to say. 

He’d wanted to say ‘Send Trip my love’ or ‘Tell him I’ll be there soon’, but he realised that whilst he had been examining and clarifying his own feelings over the past three days, Trip had last seen him in the restaurant. Just before he swept out and left Zack alone with the remains of an ice-cream sundae. And a lot that wasn’t anything to do with the events of that evening had happened to Trip in the meantime.

A wave of tiredness washed over Zack as he lay back on the couch in his trailer. The relief of knowing that Trip was awake and apparently lucid was immense. Zack closed his eyes for a moment.

***

The production assistant who came looking for him a little later had been concerned when there was no reply to her knock so she peeped in. Zack was fast asleep on the couch. She scurried back to Sam to ask if she should wake him. Sam shook his head.

‘Nah, we can sort it tomorrow. That’s a wrap guys. Thanks.’ He heaved himself out of his chair and stuffed a cigarette from a soft pack into his mouth, barely waiting until he got to the smoking area to light it. Sometimes, you just needed to bunk off for a bit.

***

A police detective had arrived as soon as the officer on guard had radioed in that Trip was awake. He was with Trip for less than twenty minutes. Trip vividly recalled the first part of the attack. He was able to give facial and clothing descriptions of three of the men and to recall a certain amount about what had happened. The officer admired the frank and honest way in which the victim was able to describe how they had discovered his female anatomy. He was secretly rather glad that Trip had no recollection of the rapes, though he had known as soon as they began to remove his pants what was about to happen. The detective could remember few other cases in which he had felt such pain for the victim.

Bev had sat by Trip’s side as he talked with the detective in a quiet but surprisingly clear voice. She marvelled, as always, at the inner strength of the young man she’d supported though some of his most challenging circumstances. 

After the police had gone Bev took Trip’s hand, carefully avoiding the needle taped to the back of it and gave him a reassuring smile.

‘How’re you doing, babe?’

Trip’s voice lost the clarity from earlier as he allowed the front to drop.

‘I hurt. Breathing is hard. I can’t open my eye.’ Trip’s voice sounded as though he were holding back sobs but it was just too painful to catch a breath. 

‘Shh, just lie still. Don’t talk. It’s OK. I know it hurts.’

But Trip wasn’t about to lie quiet. He spoke in snatched gasps.

‘Did you tell Zack? Does he know I’m here?’

Bev gathered herself together. She was rather worried about Trip’s reaction once he found out exactly what Zack had been told, how much she and Marco had needed to let out. 

Trip sensed the hesitation and turned his head painfully towards her.

‘What? What’s happened? Is he OK?’ 

‘He’s fine Trip. He’s been here every day, morning and night. We called him when we first heard. He came right over. He’s been coming by before he goes to the studio in the morning and after he finishes in the evening...’

Bev broke off as she heard Trip moan. It wasn’t clear if it was a sound of physical or emotional pain but he turned his head away.

‘Did you tell him...? About me?’ 

‘We had to, hon. He needed to know. He had to be told what had happened to you. You know we wouldn’t have done it under any other circumstances. God, Trip, us of all people...’

‘I know. It’s OK.’ Trip sounded resigned. As if another door in his life had just quietly closed.

‘Trip, I think it’s OK. I think he’s OK. He’s been here every day for you.’

If Trip had been able to let out a contemptuous snort, that’s what the noise he uttered would have been. As it was, he could barely exhale.

‘Bev, that evening ended really badly. Not just this. I acted really terribly. I may have the sympathy vote. But....’ 

Trip was finding it harder and harder to draw a breath. The pain seemed to be tightening his ribcage in a vice. He’d fractured ribs before, broken bones, been battered and bruised but nothing that had felt like this.

‘D’you want me to see if they can give you something for the pain?’ Bev asked, realising that Trip’s steely resolve would most likely prevent him from admitting he was struggling.

‘No. Thanks.’

But she got up anyway. Her sympathy vote was beginning to be rather stretched by his stubbornness in the face of such an obvious dead cert.

The staff nurse that Bev spoke to suggested that Trip should get some rest and tactfully implied that Bev ought to go home for a while. Bev took the hint and told Trip she was going to start fixing dinner for Marco. As she was turning to go, Trip spoke

‘Bev?’

She returned to the bedside. Trip looked up at her with his one open eye, the other completely swollen closed.

‘Thanks. I really needed you. Thanks for being here. Sorry this happened.’ 

Bev just kissed his forehead. Now wasn’t the time to address his misplaced guilt. 

‘See you soon, babe. Get some sleep.’

As she was leaving, the nurse returned with a small syringe which she attached to a valve high on the drip stand. She spoke to Trip as she depressed the plunger.

‘This’ll make the pain feel a bit better, you’ll also get quite drowsy. Take a nap, OK?’

Trip tried to nod but he was already quite content to close his one open eye and concentrate on breathing. He waited for sleep to descend and tried desperately not to think about the violation he’d suffered, about how it had torn down the self he had built, about how it made him feel broken, damaged... paradoxically emasculated.

He was asleep in moments.

***


	18. Chapter 18

Zack awoke late in the afternoon, refreshed but a little disoriented. His heart began to pound as he wondered if he’d been needed on set. Then he reassured himself that someone would have come knocking and woken him up. He slowly raised himself off the couch, his body stiff. A few stretches and things were a little more mobile. Then, checking his watch, he straightened his clothes and left the trailer, heading for the soundstage.

He was surprised to find so few people about at what wasn’t a late hour. He asked some technicians where Sam was and the consensus had seemed to be that he’d been called away shortly after Zack had left. Eventually Zack located a young man with a clipboard, who checked the schedule sheet for the day and confirmed that Sam was off set and Zack could probably leave. It seemed so entirely random that a whole film crew and cast could simply evaporate that Zack was a bit puzzled but he decided to take advantage and head out to the hospital as soon as he could. 

Although Marco had suggested he call before leaving, Zack decided to simply turn up and take his chances. If Trip wasn’t up to a visit he’d leave a message or wait or.... he realised that actually he had no idea what he’d do if Trip wasn’t able to see him. He wanted to see Trip so much he hadn’t considered the very real possibility that it might not be reciprocated.

Fuck it. Faint heart never won... whatever.

He’d woken up completely and was excited about the prospects ahead as he climbed into his car. A heady optimism filled him. He just needed to communicate that he was determined to break down Trip’s resistance. That he wasn’t giving up or going away. He had a vague feeling that he was going to be more than a little irritating. But Trip could probably use a distraction or two. Zack deliberately didn’t check his rather tactless and overly sunny mindset. Awful things had happened. Trip had been badly hurt and ...all that... but he was awake! He was conscious! He wasn’t in a coma anymore. The healing could begin. 

The Disney elf inside his head danced with an obscene length of crepe bandage whilst warbling saccharinely upbeat snatches of song.

Sleeping in the afternoon certainly seemed to have a positive effect on Zack’s mood.

***

Forty minutes later, Zack sat at Trip’s bedside, in a pose to which he’d become accustomed, watching Trip sleep.

But sleep, just sleep. Not coma.

Jackson had greeted Zack when he arrived, telling him that Trip had been given some pretty knockout painkillers about three hours previously and would likely surface fairly soon. Zack was more than happy to wait. He was getting used to it.

Trip suddenly shifted in the bed, uttering a broken cry and twisting his right arm. Zack worried that the movement might dislodge the cannula which held the drip so he reached for the hand and held it gently.

‘It’s OK’ he murmured instinctively.

At the touch and the sound of Zack’s voice, Trip took a short sharp breath and opened his right eye, trying and failing to get the left to catch up. He exhaled with an ‘Ah’ of pain and turned slightly towards Zack.

‘Hey’ Zack smiled.

‘Hey’ Trip replied, moving his hand away from Zack’s.

‘I was just stopping you from ripping your drip out, that’s all.’

‘Oh. Thanks.’

‘You have a good sleep? I thought maybe you were dreaming.’ Zack tried to keep it conversational but it was kind of awkward admitting that he’d been watching Trip sleep.

‘I dunno. Maybe’

‘It’s weird...’ Zack began ‘...I never realised how still someone could be when they’re unconscious and how much they move when they’re asleep. They’re totally different states.’

‘I guess.’

‘I’ve been here a couple times a day, to see you.’

‘Yeah, Bev said. Uh, thanks.’ Trip took a visibly painful breath and tried to find the best and briefest way of letting Zack off the hook.

‘You really didn’t have to... waste so much of your time on me. I was pretty rude the other night.’

‘I wanted to be here, Trip. Nobody forced me. I choose what I do with my time. I chose to be with you. I chose to be with you because I was concerned, I was scared you wouldn’t wake up, that you had brain damage. I was terrified that the funny, brave, handsome man that I so much enjoy spending time with wasn’t coming back. Bev told me about you, the first night here, that you’re transgender and you know what shocked me the most? Not that. It was what they did to you that shocked me and hurt me the most...’

Zack paused and looked at Trip’s face. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow. He looked suddenly very pale. Zack reached for his hand again.

‘Hey, you still with me?’  
Trip’s eye opened and he nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m here. No place to be right now.’

‘Good. Because I intend to take full advantage of the fact that you are completely incapacitated to talk about myself for a bit. I’m not stupid. As soon as I knew your big secret I understood why you’d behaved like that in the restaurant, why you constantly sent out mixed messages and then ran for the hills. Trip, I like you. I am attracted to you. It seems to me you’ve made a fine art out of pushing people away before they blow your cover. I’m sure I’m not the only one you’ve done it to. But I am not giving up. Not when I feel like this. And not when I think you feel the same. Tell me the truth, do you like me? Am I right?’

Trip closed his eye again and in the smallest voice replied:

‘Yes. Yes, I like you.’

Zack exhaled.

‘Thank you. Thank you for being honest. I know it’s really unfair of me to hit you with this now but if you were on full power we’d never even be having this conversation. I just wanted to hear you say it. I’m gonna go and let you rest now. We can continue another time. Tomorrow maybe.’

Trip turned the hand that Zack was touching until he was able to hook his thumb around Zack’s little finger.

‘Will you stay?’ he asked clearly.

Zack tucked his finger into Trip’s palm.

‘Of course. As long as you want me to.’

They remained still and silent, finger and thumb intertwined until Zack felt the gentle pressure of Trip’s hand relax and his breathing slow in sleep.

***


	19. Chapter 19

Trip slept fitfully until about three the following morning. He was wrenched from sleep by sharp pains in the sides of his chest. He tried to move to better position himself but only managed to trigger more pain in his arm, his sides and a dull, burning ache between his legs.

In the half-light of the hospital night, surrounded by curtains and knowing that there were people close by, Trip allowed himself to succumb to dark thoughts. Four complete strangers had attacked, beaten and raped him. Four men had violated the part of his body which he’d almost managed to forget. Ten years of living without a full length mirror in his apartment, ten years of wearing compression shirts and binders to hide breasts that had all but turned into pectoral muscle, ten years of habitually ignoring the void at the juncture of his thighs... all gone in one night. Yes, the androgens he injected had lowered his voice, helped him to build muscle, stimulated hair growth that was not to be believed but they didn’t change the fundamental fact that in the eyes of four guys out on the town, he was a woman.

Trip hadn’t had this inner turmoil in a long, long time. He followed some of the good advice from hours of therapy, he went to Bev when he began to spiral into a depression and she was usually able to perk him up. But mostly, he kept himself to himself and didn’t allow difficult situations to arise.

Well, a few difficult situations seemed to have arisen lately. 

Trip tried hard not to let his thoughts turn to Zack. He wanted to immerse himself in self-pity for a while. He felt he deserved it. After all, he had been born into the wrong body, endured a childhood and adolescence of withdrawal and misery, been rejected by his parents, found an identity that was closer to his own but had to repel any kind of closeness in order to preserve it and now was lying, aching, in a hospital bed thanks to four men who firstly objected to his sexuality and then to his gender identity...

And he hadn’t fought back.

Pain shot through him as he felt his breathing start to hitch. He tried to stop the sobs but couldn’t prevent hot, angry tears from rolling down his bruised cheeks. Trip felt entirely broken, as if his whole existence had been crushed, his self had been demolished. He didn’t hear himself uttering a keening moan that alerted Nurse Paula, he could now barely even feel the agony about his chest as he cried with his whole body, heart and soul.

‘Hey, what’s up?’ Paula had hurried into the cubical as soon as she heard Trip’s moaning cry. She checked the monitor beside the bed and took his wrist, pressing the back of her other hand gently to the side of his neck.

‘Trey? Trip? It’s Paula here, what’s going on sweetie?’

The sobbing figure on the bed didn’t seem to notice her so she tried again:

‘Just let me know if you can hear me, Trip. Nod your head. I need to know if you can hear what I’m saying.’

Trip nodded.

‘OK, now try to calm down and let me know what’s wrong. Is something hurting?’

So much was hurting, Trip didn’t think he could bear it. The least of it was physical.

‘Do you need something for the pain?’

Trip shook his head once, with surprising vigour. Paula sensed that there was something to get to the bottom of here.

‘C’mon, try to breathe, it’s OK, you’re OK.’

She sat on the edge of the bed, still holding Trip’s wrist, until eventually the storm of sobs calmed and her patient began to breathe a little more easily.

‘That’s better. Now, you wanna tell me what started all that? You have a bad dream?’

Trip shook his head again and gasped

‘My fucking life is a bad dream.’

OK, Paula thought. Fair enough, all things considered.

‘You’ve had a rough ride but I think you’re on the mend.’

Trip figured that she was referring to the most recent events only. There was no reason at all to put her right. He wasn’t on the mend. He’d just been broken all over again.

Paula tried a diversionary tactic.

‘I think the doctors are going to let you out of here in a couple days or so. They just want to keep you under observation for a little longer, get you up and about and eating a bit...’

Trip looked up at her.

‘Really?’

‘Yep. You’re basically OK. A bit knocked about, but now we know that bump on your head didn’t do any permanent damage there’s no reason to keep you here. You might as well go home to recover. You’ll be more comfortable in your own place.’

Trip seemed to digest this piece of news for a moment. Paula went on

‘Bev and ...is it Marco...? Said they’d come help out. And I’m sure Zack will too...’

Paula eyed his reaction carefully. A tiny parting of his lips as she artfully dropped Zack’s name into the comment. Ah she’d missed her vocation. She should have done psych nursing. Bang on with that one. She continued

‘He’s been in here every day, even when you were out cold. Am I out of line suggesting there’s something special there?’

Trip tried not to let his heart give that little skip as he remembered the previous evening. He was just so tired of keeping it in, holding it all back. Others may have physically kicked him though he was more adept at battering his own feelings into submission. But he was weary. It was like the emotional outburst of a few minutes ago had taken all the fight from him.

‘No you’re not out of line.’

‘Mmm-Hmm...’

‘What?’

‘I was just hoping for some dish...’

Trip couldn’t help but smile at her. It hurt his mouth and his eye to do so but she was acting so unlike a nurse and so much like... like... a friend. 

‘Not much to dish at the moment.’

‘Oh, c’mon! It’s pretty darn apparent that he’s got the hots for you, and he is cu-te!’ Paula extended the word as she raised her eyebrows at him. Trip attempted another smile.

Paula was congratulating herself on having successfully lifted her patient out of the dark mood he’d evidently been in. He was even smiling. Just a little more and then she’d suggest a bit more pain medication and some sleep.

‘So where are you two at then, huh?’

‘Well, personally, I’m still trying to resolve...’ Trip took a breath ‘...a thirty year battle against my own body...’ another breath ‘...when that’s done...’ breath ‘...maybe I can let someone else in.’

‘Oh, I see.’ 

All joking aside, Paula settled in for a counselling session that didn’t look like it would allow either of them any rest for a while.

‘Tell me.’


	20. Chapter 20

With barely a fortnight of filming left before the movie went into post-production, Zack found his schedule was easing up a little. The day that Trip was discharged from hospital he found that he had an entire day free from commitments and offered to drive him back to his apartment.

The doctors had decided to keep Trip in for three more days after the night of his long talk with Paula. She’d discussed his state of mind with the consultant who had arranged for Trip to get some extra counselling sessions. Gender therapy was a particularly specialist area and it seemed serendipitous that not only did the hospital have excellent links in the field but that Trip’s medical insurance covered it. 

Trip wasn’t sure if it was the night spent talking in breathless phrases with Paula or the three ‘emergency attack’ therapy sessions but he began to feel on a much more even keel. His habit of constantly pushing people away and ignoring difficult issues and squashing his feelings had surfaced immediately as the greatest barriers to healing both his long-held hurts and the more recent ones. The therapist didn’t ask any questions about how Trip had come to a realisation of his true gender identity or what his childhood had been like. He just seemed to accept things were as they were. This was surprising but rather refreshing. They talked about his decision against surgery and Trip’s rather anguished spiel had been met with a simple ‘Lots of guys choose not to’ before they moved onto other matters. He had even begun to be able to process the guilt he was experiencing about not having been able to fight off his attackers.

When Zack arrived at the hospital to pick him up, Trip was dressed and sitting in the lobby, a small black overnight bag on the floor beside him. Jackson was nearby with a plastic bag containing a couple of blister packs of pain medication. 

Zack raised a hand in greeting and Trip waved his left arm, still in its cast. He no longer sported a bandage around his head but there was a visible bald patch at the back which revealed a nasty-looking patch of raw skin. Trip’s eye wasn’t as swollen as it had been only days earlier but it was the most incredible range of colors. He looked as if he’d been made up in elaborate stage style. But only on one side. Zack smiled as he approached. 

‘Mmmm love the color scheme! Purple and yellow are so this season!’

Trip laughed and then caught himself

‘Argh! Don’t make me laugh!’

‘Sorry. You ready to go?’

Trip turned to Jackson ‘Am I ready to go?’

‘Yup, all set. Two of these no more than four times in twenty-four hours and we’ll see you back here in a week for a check up, OK?’

‘OK. Thanks for everything.’

Jackson ducked his head. 

‘It’s what we do, Trip. You take care now, y’hear?’

‘I will’

Both Trip and Zack shook Jackson’s hand and they turned towards the door, Zack picking up the bag as he went.

Trip squinted in the brightness of the light even though it was a relatively cloudy morning. Zack noticed and offered him the sunglasses off his own forehead to wear.

‘Thanks’ Trip said, glancing at them before putting them on ‘Mmm, Dior. Swanky.’

‘Yeah, well. I am a film star, y’know.’ Zack quipped as they crossed the parking lot.

‘Oh, I know.’

His metallic blue two-seater was parked in the central block of the lot. He fired the key and the doors unlocked with a satisfying clunk. He whisked round to the passenger side and opened the door with a flourish for Trip. 

Trip hesitated.

‘Uh, it’s kinda hard to bend without using my arm...’ he began

‘Shit, sorry, here let me help’ Zack slipped a hand beneath Trip’s right arm and took his weight as he slid painfully into the seat.

‘Thanks.’ Trip said, looking up at him.

‘Those sunglasses suit you way too much. You may have to keep them.’ Zack grinned before closing the door and popping the trunk open for the bag.

As he settled himself into his seat he realised that Trip was unable to reach and secure the seat belt so he gestured at it

‘Want me to do the belt up?’

‘Please. Sorry to be so difficult.’

‘Don’t start that.’ Zack braced his right hand on the seat back as he reached across Trip with his left. 

In the moment it took him to locate the belt, Trip raised his right hand to the back of Zack’s head, pulled him close and kissed him firmly on the lips.

Zack pushed back on his right hand but stayed close.

‘Well, that was unexpected.’

‘D’you mind?’ Trip looked scared behind the sunglasses, lowering his hand quickly to the seat.

Zack smiled, ‘I’m not sure, let’s see, shall we?’ and, lifting the sunglasses carefully from Trip’s nose, he leant in, slowly and with infinite tenderness and pressed their lips together once more. As he pulled back reluctantly he whispered

‘No, no, I think I can handle it.’

He finally managed to get the seatbelt fastened despite his fingers shaking and his mind racing and they sat in silence for a moment, both staring straight ahead. 

Trip put the sunglasses back on and took a shaky breath. Zack looked over and smiled.

‘Wow. Just wow.’

He keyed the ignition and reversed the car out of the space.

‘So, you’ll have to direct me as I have no idea where you live.’

For the entire drive all that passed between them were directions and comments about the scenery. 

Zack’s heart was singing but his better judgement told him to pace this thing. Trip was rigid with habitual terror and the effort to keep his body as still as possible to avoid painful turns and jolts. 

He could still taste and feel Zack on his lips, though.

***


End file.
